


The Quill

by MmeCurie



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Dubious Consent, Emotional Abuse, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Forced Abortion, Imprisonment, Murder, Physical Abuse, Rape, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-23
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2017-12-30 07:18:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 13
Words: 60,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1015722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MmeCurie/pseuds/MmeCurie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Step into the dark world of New Kanatahseton, a place plagued by famine, broken by distrust and crushed by fear.  This is my world, the only thing I've known for almost as long I can remember.  The world ruled by our God, King Ratonhnhake:ton, may he live forever...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**The 29th of August in the 14th year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

My name is Lily Thompson. I don’t even know why I’m doing this. Maybe it is because I hope one day that Mother will read it and know how much I love her. I have tried to talk to her but ever since Father came home from The Wall, she hasn’t been herself. We used to talk often. She is sad all the time now and I am left to care for Father as best as I can. He can’t do much for himself. I feel like I’m talking to a stranger every time I go in there. I know he’s my father but I haven’t known him for the twelve years that he has been gone. He is a broken and aged man, unable to walk well or lift anything. His right arm is gone and his left hand is so malformed it doesn’t open. Sometimes when he smiles at me it seems familiar but I was only six years old when he left New Kanatahseton. I remember a much younger man…

Mother, every day you ask Father when my brother is coming home again. ‘He must be a man now,’ you say. He was almost a man when he left with Father. Father keeps telling you that he isn’t coming home and I know you know what that means. I do. He’s dead. There. I’ve said it. It’s the truth, Mother, and I miss him too. Eddie always made chores fun for me and whenever I hurt myself he was the first to lift me up over his head and make me laugh. He was sixteen when he left with Father, which would have made him twenty and eight today. If none of this had happened, maybe he would be married and you would have some little grandchildren by now. I’m sorry, Mother, but if I can’t talk about him with you, I must get it out of me somehow.

Sometimes I wonder how we ended up like this at all. ‘Just the wrong place at the wrong time, Lily,’ you always said. I remember you shushing me when I said that the King was a mean man for sending Father and Eddie away. You told me He said it was for our protection that He was building a wall, so that bad people couldn’t get in and corrupt us. I didn’t know what that word meant. I was too little to understand then, but I know now what it means. At times, I think to myself that it is the King who has corrupted us, not the people Outside. I know it’s treason to speak such words. It’s probably treason to write them down but I don’t care anymore. Father is dying, Mother. It won’t be long. I wish you would just try. I know he loves you.

**The 16th of September in the 14th year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

Father died last night. Mother didn’t get out of bed and I had to pay our closest neighbor with the food we would have eaten tonight to help me dig his grave and move his body into it. It took a long time and I tried to make up for it while harvesting our small field until well past dark. There wasn’t much to collect but I made sure I got everything. Even the unripened corn will get something at the market tomorrow. I’m so tired.

**The 23rd of September in the 14th year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

I weep as I write this. How can so many terrible things happen to one family? To one person? When I returned from the market the day after Father died, Mother had hung herself from the rafters of our house. It was the most terrible thing I had ever seen! Her face was purple and I had to cut her down with a kitchen knife. I will never forget the sound her body made when she fell to the floor. It was the sound of death. Everything here is death! No one smiles anymore. Winter is coming quickly and I fear it more than anything. How many people will starve this year? It seems like more and more die every winter.

I held Mother in my arms until there were no more tears left in me that day. I had only the little food I could barter for in the market from our pitiful corn harvest and I just had to eat some of it. I couldn’t give it away in exchange for help so I dug up Father’s grave and buried Mother with him in the same place. It was easier than digging a new grave. May the Lord and King forgive me for it.

In the week since Mother died I have tried to eat as little as possible but I fear for the winter.

**The 24th of September in the 14th year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

My neighbor frightens me. He knows I’m alone in here and I have seen him on our land more than once. Some of the wood I chopped yesterday is gone so I spent time today bringing it all inside. I can’t trust anyone, it seems. I took everything inside that I could, including our farm tools and bucket. I’m tempted to bring our little milk goat, Thistle, into the house too but then I would look crazy and it would be very messy.

Sometimes I think about the God Mother used to pray to when she was upset. When the ships stopped coming to Boston, shortly after it was renamed the Port of New Kanatahseton, she used to pray to that God. “For the souls of the lost sailors,” she told me. She said that her God was loving and merciful… qualities I don’t believe exist in our Lord and King. Again, with my treasonous words. But how can I not feel that way when He requires us to worship him yet seems only to punish his followers with labor and seemingly arbitrary decisions about who gets help? With so many starving, how can He say He is protecting us and guiding us toward freedom? His subjects are dying yet He won’t listen to our cries for help! Some of Mother’s closest friends have gone to Him in the Palace for aid yet have returned empty handed or not returned at all. The few who return vow they will never go back and describe Him as a God of immense power and mightiness. All who present themselves to Him in petition must bow to the floor and kiss a golden orb. No one is allowed to look upon His face, for they risk death to do so.

Rumors abound that He is a monster with glowing blue eyes and He can transform into any beast He wants. Some say He flies into a rage at the least provocation or sometimes from none at all. I once heard that He killed an entire room full of people by raising His golden orb of power above his head. That is not a God of love and mercy. He isn’t a God I want to worship but I am compelled to for my survival. There are many who will report me if I do not say the words. May our Lord and King protect us. May our Lord and King live forever. I have seen people dragged away and executed publicly for refusing. None speak of it afterwards. To speak of the treasonous dead is to risk being condemned by association.

**The 3rd of October in the 14th year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

My food is running low already. I have been trying to only eat one small meal a day and then only water to keep my stomach full but it hurts. I’m hungry all the time but I have to make my food last. I have gone around the town offering to mend clothes in exchange for food but no one is interested. The days are cold and the nights are colder. I snuck Thistle into the house after dark last night. I know it sounds crazy, but I took her into bed with me and it was the warmest I have been in a while. I think she was happy, too. I smell like her now but I don’t care.

**The 12th of October in the 14th year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

It snowed today. I had planned on gathering more hay for Thistle but now it’s buried under the snow. I can take what extends above the snow line for her but everything else is too wet. It will rot before she can eat it. What have I done? My precious little girl will starve just like me.

**The 14th of October in the 14th year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

My neighbor caught me cutting some dry grass near some rocks on his property. He beat me and threatened to kill me if he ever caught me stealing from him again. He took my sickle, too. Thistle butts my leg and bleats at me because she’s hungry. I’m a terrible mother.

**The 19th of October in the 14th year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

Finally, I have a happy thing to write of. The woods around the west side of the village have many oak trees. I decided to break open an acorn and eat it when I was looking for something to feed Thistle. It was bitter but I felt better after. I didn’t get sick from it so I went and gathered as many as I could find in my apron. Thistle and I feasted on them that night. I got a stomach ache from it but at least it wasn’t hunger pains.

**The 1st of November, in the 14th year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

Winter has truly come early this year. The snow just keeps coming and getting deeper and deeper. I have to warm my hands under my jacket because it is so cold outside. It’s hard to find acorns now and Thistle is barely giving any milk. What she does give is dark and bitter. Probably because she has no sweet hay to eat, only bitter acorns.

**The 11th of November in the 14th year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

Today I gathered together everything of Mother’s that I could, save her favorite brooch, and took it to the market to sell. I had to do it! I haven’t eaten for two days. I got a few small pieces of dried meat, some beans, eight potatoes and three tiny ears of unripe corn. It was a better haul than I was expecting and I think I can make it last for at least a month. Thistle liked the corn and she was upset at me that I only gave her the tip of one ear. I think she understood when I explained to her that it has to last a very long time. She watched as I counted the beans and divided them up into piles of ten. I told her she could have ten beans a day when the corn ran out and I would have a little piece of potato. Once a week, I will eat some dried meat and she can have five extra beans.

**The 6th of December in the 14th year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

We ran out of food today. We ate our last bean at the same time and then crawled into bed. I don’t know what to do. Maybe I should travel to the Palace and petition the King for help. But I don’t want to leave Thistle here by herself. What if someone steals her while I’m gone? I can’t let that happen.

**The 9th of December in the 14th year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

I have been thinking a lot. I don’t know what kind of monster I am but I’ve been considering a terrible thing. I think I am going to have to kill Thistle if I’m to survive. If I can just get through the worst snows, I can forage in the woods again but I won’t make it without something to eat. I’m a monster. I truly am. Thistle trusts me and I love her but I can’t stop thinking about it.

**The 11th of December in the 14th year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

I did it. I became the monster I knew I was going to become and it was all for nothing. Thistle’s blood still stains my clothes and I’m a hideous, hideous monster. She followed me to the barn, she trusted me! I carried the heavy axe right next to her and she didn’t suspect my evil motives. All she did was look at me with her giant brown eyes. I think she loved me until the very last moment when I swung the axe and crushed her skull. At least it was quick. But my horrible neighbor must have seen me. Maybe he heard me crying, I don’t know. I hate him! He’s more heartless than I am for killing Thistle. He came into the barn as I was butchering my darling pet and grabbed her body. I tried to keep her from him but he hit me and knocked me to the floor. When I got up he dropped poor Thistle and beat me worse than when he had found me cutting the grass on his land. I was too weak to get up after and he took Thistle away. He even took the bucket of her blood that I was going to empty into the stream in place of burying it. Now I have nothing. I hate this place! I hate myself. I promised Thistle I would use all of her to survive the winter and now I’m a liar, too.

Now I have to take the chance of going to the Palace to petition the King tomorrow. I’m frightened. I’ve never been there before but I know the way. It shouldn’t take long to get there, maybe almost a day’s walk. If I make it by the end of the day it will still be my birthday. I turn 19 tomorrow. Maybe that will make a difference when I make my petition.

**The 13th of December in the 14th year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

I have much to share.

I walked all day to reach the palace and despite the cold, I was relieved to rest for a while outside. At last I was allowed inside and it was warm, so blessedly warm! I felt better once I was inside and I worked at straightening my clothes and hair so I could be presentable. Though we are forbidden to do so, I stole a glance up at the throne. It was far away yet I could see the man, the King, who sat upon the gilded throne. He was younger than I was expecting. I thought I would see a man of at least forty or fifty, yet He appeared to be much younger than that. I assumed it was because of the distance and He wore a strange hat made from the skin of a wolf. The muzzle cast a dark shadow over His face so it was difficult to see Him well. I was exhausted by the time I was allowed to approach the throne. There were many stairs and I thought I would collapse when I reached the first level but I managed to get to the top dais and kneel to kiss the golden orb He held, just as everyone else had done before me.

The king seemed to be oblivious to my presence. He sat slouched and didn’t even move as I leaned in close to kiss the golden orb. It was as if He were sleeping. As soon as my lips touched the orb a strange sensation came over me. My entire body prickled and the orb was warm to my lips. It was such an odd feeling and my vision began to dim! I felt myself falling forward in a faint. The next thing I knew, the King was on His feet! He was screaming at me, at all in attendance. I thought my heart would stop so I covered my face and tried to curl into a ball. How could I have let myself touch Him just to stop from falling? What was I thinking? I don’t even remember my hand falling on Him but it must have because He went on about my daring to lay a hand on a deity and that I would pay with my life. I was sure my entire existence was done in that moment. The guards grabbed me roughly by my arms and started to drag me away. I no longer had the strength to stand and I just didn’t care anymore. What was there worth living for anymore?

But then the King stopped shouting. He bade the guards to bring me forward. They threw me to the ground in front of the King’s feet and bowed down on either side of me as He sat back down in His throne. I could feel the cold stone floor under my hands and my body trembled.

The King spoke to me directly. “Look at me,” He said. I felt ill. His voice was low and almost smooth yet frightening all the same. What was happening? I lifted my head and could only get as high as His knees before my terror overwhelmed me. His legs were covered in dark hide boots with tassels and hide leggings. His white loincloth hung down from the front of the chair. Those bones that decorate it… Some had said they were the finger bones of His enemies and others had said they were the rib bones. They were broken on each end and sewed one above the other onto His loincloth. I knew He sat forward in the throne because His knees shifted slightly.

“Look… at me.” His voice was even lower that time and I forced myself to raise my eyes up His body. He wore a red cloth belt around His muscular waist and His fingers tapped impatiently along the top of the orb that He held resting on the top of His thigh. Strange markings crossed His sides diagonally and also marked His arms underneath the huge steel bands He wore around His massive arms. Leather straps crossed His equally massive chest and, over a thick fur shoulder cover, that wolf hide. From my position below Him, I could see under the shadow of the wolf head. From the darkness, oh, I quake even now remembering! His eyes. They were a frightful shade of blue that glowed as if lit from inside. It was the very same brightness as when a lantern catches the eyes of a night creature and set them alight. Only His were an unnatural hue, something otherworldly and terrifying. The King had tattoos on His face, marking the dark skin of His cheeks, forehead, nose and chin.

From so close… He was indeed far younger than I was expecting. I had no time to dwell on that for He had yet another command for me. This time I watched His mouth form the words.

“Come closer.” I wanted to scream. I wanted to run from there because of my fear but to disobey Him is to face death. So I sat up onto my knees and leaned in toward Him. Suddenly He was bending down to me and His hand was in my hair, holding my head so I couldn’t look away. My first instinct was to attempt freeing myself from His grip but I managed to stop my hands just short of grasping His wrist. He stared into my face for an eternity, boring into me with His glowing eyes. I felt stripped naked before Him and the feeling only intensified when He leaned me backwards further by my hair and looked down my body. That orb glowed subtly under His fingers and my skin wished to crawl as far away from His touch as possible.

At last He released me and I wanted to weep with relief but my ordeal was not over.  
“What is your petition, Lily?” He asked. He knew my name! How was that possible? I stammered out a brief version of my situation, hardly knowing if I was making any sense. To my surprise, He smiled at me in a terrible way and granted me food, warm clothing and a mounted guardsman to transport me back to my cottage to ensure I arrived home safely. With a dismissive gesture, He let me go.

One of the guards, a dark skinned Indian man with very long hair, who had started to drag me away before helped me up most gently and held my arm as I descended the steps. He quietly asked me to wait before leaving me for some time. When he returned, he bore a large bag and a woolen shawl, which he silently draped over me. I thanked him but he gave no response. He led me through the palace to a stable and lifted me up onto the horse he selected. I would have preferred to ride alone but he got on and kept one arm around me the entire trip back. It didn’t take as long on a horse. I must have fallen asleep for some of the trip for I remember very little of the night.

When we arrived in the early morning, he asked which man had beaten me and stolen my goat. I did not remember speaking of that but in my exhaustion, I suppose it was possible. I indicated his house and the guardsman helped me down and saw that I entered my house. He lowered the bag of supplies off of his shoulder just inside the door. Instead of getting on the horse and leaving, he walked across the snowy fields toward my neighbor’s house. I watched from the window as he knocked on the door. Fear grew in my heart. If he threatened the man, it would only mean more trouble for me. My fears should have been for something else, something darker… When my neighbor answered his door, the guardsman grabbed a club from his hip and bludgeoned him to death. I couldn’t move. I didn’t dare scream. It seemed the King had given him orders to ensure His gifts would only benefit those whom He chose. The guardsman returned and led his horse to my stable. He did not come out for some hours. I dared not enter the stable to find out why he lingered. At last he did leave, riding away in the afternoon with a few bits of dirty old hay stuck to his uniform and in his hair. It appears he was tired after the ride and murdering my neighbor.

I no longer know what to think of what has transpired. While the threat of having my food taken from me is no longer in existence, it is due to me that a man is now dead. I find only the smallest comfort in knowing my dear Thistle has been avenged but it pales beside the dark horror of its method. I have food enough to last me for some time and some warm items to hold me through the winter but at what cost? What made the King change his mind? Had he truly looked into my soul as it had seemed at the time? Did that orb give him the power to read my mind or to know truth from lies? I’ll probably never know.

**The 23rd of December in the 14th year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

I find myself back in the King’s palace this day. I know not what is happening and I’m terribly frightened. Just this morning I was home and now I’m here. The same guard who brought me home little more than a week ago turned up at my door. He told me the King requested me. Me! He said I should bring things of importance to me for I would be His guest for some days. I had only the clothes I wore, some food and my mother’s brooch and this journal. Everything else could keep while I was gone… Or burn. As soon as I had gathered my things the guardsman escorted me over to his horse and took me up onto it as he had before. Two other guardsmen were there with him. They carried lit torches which they threw into the house and barn. I tried to fight the guard but he held me fast and covered my mouth as I screamed. I finally could only watch as my home and everything in it burned. My escort rode away and only by fighting as hard as I could against the man who held me could I see over his shoulder as my burning house disappeared among the trees. I could smell the smoke for hours after the fire was out of sight. I tried to ask why they burned my house but my words were met with silence. Only the beating of my captor’s heart against my back and the sounds of his breathing gave away that he was a man and not a stone.

I tried once more to escape him. He had taken his arm from my waist and I had resisted the urge to escape the moment he had first done it. He turned his head to look at something and that is when I leapt sideways from the horse. My sudden movement alerted him and he grabbed for me. We both fell to the ground. Somehow, he lost his hold on me and I managed to get up and start running. The other two guards cut off my escape with their horses. The first guard must have been right behind me because as soon as I tried to turn he had me. He shouted at me to stop fighting as I struggled. He repeated it several times until he had me on my back underneath him and his hair was in my face. It was then that he looked me in the eyes for the first time. To my surprise there was no rage in his dark eyes. I saw a form of kindness and maybe even empathy in them and his face showed concern, not anger. He held my wrists up over my head with only enough strength to keep them there. It was almost as if he didn’t really want to have to restrain me.

“Do not fight or I will bind you.” He said quietly. When I nodded, he sat back and pulled me up to a sitting position. To my surprise, he let go of my arms, brushed the snow off of my body gently and then helped me to my feet. He took me by my upper arm and I went with him, docile as a lamb, to get back on the horse and finish our journey. He never took his arm from around me after that.

At the palace, I was escorted by my guards directly to the King. They took me past scores of petitioners and when we reached the top dais I started to kneel beside the long haired guardsman. Unsure of what was to become of me, I started weeping at the King’s feet. He took my arm just above my elbow and raised me up. His hand was as hot as fire and He drew me near. He pulled me until I stood between His knees but He kept drawing me closer until I was leaning over his body. His face was so close I could smell the scent of him: hides and oiled leather, gunpowder and scorched earth. The odor of fire was potent on him and all I could think of was my burning home. All my memories, both good and bad, had been taken from me. He took them! And then He struck further fear into my heart. He brought his face close to me.

“You have found favor with me, Lily.” He whispered those words with His eyes glowing from within. The teeth of His wolf head covering were sharp on my scalp and the heat of His breath rushed past my ear as he spoke. No words have ever drawn such chills of deathly premonition as the ones He spoke to me that moment. I fear my life will be forever changed.

I have to stop and stare from the windows of this room I have been put in. Am I truly a guest? I have never heard of locking a guest inside a room, no matter how sumptuous it is. I have been here for some hours. As soon as the King had spoken His words to me, I was escorted here by the long haired guard and left with two elderly women. Neither of them spoke to me nor answered my questions. They seemed to be without emotion or compassion. Nay, they moved as if they had no will of their own. They took my clothes from me and burned them in the enormous fireplace, every last stitch, only leaving me this journal and my mother’s precious brooch. I was made to step into an oversized basin of hot water fixed to the stone floor of an adjacent room and they scrubbed my body until I was cleaner than I can remember ever being. They then dried me off and rubbed scented oil into my skin, soothing the redness I had attained from such vigorous scrubbing. They pinned my hair away from my face but left it hanging down my back. A length of dark blue fabric was wrapped around my body so it flows like a dress. The end of it was looped over my right shoulder to hang down my back to the floor, leaving the other shoulder bare and indecent. Then they left me.

So here I sit. The room I’m in has a huge bed with the softest blankets, four posters and a canopy above. The stone walls are covered in patterned tapestries and there is a black bear fur on the floor beside the bed. There is also a large writing table and two windows that are much taller than they are wide but are only as wide as my spread hand. There is glass in them, the finest I’ve ever seen. I can clearly see through them and watch the birds soaring in the distance. I am high up. There were many stairs leading here and my guard had had to help me up the last flight.

As I write, the portion of the blue fabric that covers my shoulder keeps falling off. Maybe my mother’s brooch will hold it in place. It does. That’s much better. I hear the sound of booted footsteps in the hall.

**The 23-24th of December in the 14th year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

Oh, what horrors will come to me next? What am I to do? I’m truly a prisoner of an awful monster in this place. On the outside it appears beautiful and a thing of luxury but it is in actuality a gilded prison! If only I could climb through these windows and jump to my death but alas! They are much too small and I’m far too big. It must have been designed this way intentionally…

How could this be happening? Every sound I hear makes me sick… It could be Him… or a guard coming to take me to Him. I’ve never been so afraid in my life.

My body still aches from the King’s cruelty and I cannot get the smell of Him out of my nose and off of my skin.

But I must start from the beginning. Maybe if I can get it all written down I can begin to sort it out.

I was escorted through the palace to a dining room by that same long haired guard. It seems he has become my personal sentry. I remember the cold tiles beneath my bare feet and the sound of our progress echoing in the empty halls. The King was waiting for me when I was led into the dining room. A second guard joined us as we passed through the door and I was ushered over to the King by them both. He stood up, leaving the golden orb in a nook on his chair arm and it was the first time I had seen Him not sitting down. He positively towered over me and I felt my knees become weak when He came very close to me. I was face to face with the large disc hanging from His necklace. Without a word, He raised His hand and brought it to my face, sliding His fingers along my cheek, back into my hair and gripping it to tilt my face up. I found myself recoiling from Him but both of the guards took me by my arms and prevented me from moving away.

The King’s face was impassive, expressionless and His eyes… they’re so wrong, so frightful. Even when the rest of His face was in shadow His eyes emitted a light and malice all their own. He leaned down and smelled me, starting with my hair and then tilting my head farther back until He reached my neck. Before I could react, His mouth was on mine in a kiss. I attempted to raise my arms to push Him away but the guards prevented me from doing to. He took His time, tightening His fingers in my hair when I tried to turn out of it. The smell of Him was all around me, in my nose and head. That acrid, burned odor of singed flesh and char. I found myself pinned between him and my guards as He brought His other hand to my neck. He slid his fingers along the side and then His thumb crossed over the front, closing it into his grip. Try as I might to resist, He forced His tongue into my mouth and the threat of Him crushing my throat kept me from biting Him. He squeezed my neck slightly and then released it, only to drag His overly hot hand down my chest and onto my breast. The fabric between His hand and my skin was thin and He made a noise into my mouth when He touched me. Only then did He desist from kissing me.

He stood up straight and looked at me then. Far from being expressionless, His face carried the look of a hungry animal, a wolf! I was gasping, trying to catch my breath. He spoke to me then, His voice a breathy, hoarse whisper.

“You are an exquisite little creature, Lily.” His breathing was deep, as if He were out of breath as well. His voice still rings in my ears and I can yet feel His hand on my body. He didn’t stop with fondling my breast. Nay, he slid his hand down my stomach and then over my hip, reaching around to caress my lower back and then my buttocks. It didn’t matter that I was covered… I felt naked and exposed to Him in those endless moments. My body quivered in fear and when He at last released His hold on my hair and allowed me to lower my head I noticed something else that made me want to die of terror. He was aroused. His loincloth did little to hide what was beneath it. I must have become very pale, for His eyebrows shifted together and He stepped back from me, leaving my body alone at last. He gestured to the chair near His at the table and commanded me.

“Sit, eat. You have a place of honor here with me.” The guards didn’t wait for me to obey. They sat me down and then stepped back a few paces. The King seated Himself and gestured to the table as I stared blankly at the dishes of food and filled wine goblet before me.

“This is all for you. Eat. Drink. Have whatever you desire.”

I didn’t eat much. I couldn’t. My heart never ceased to beat in a frantic rhythm and my stomach felt as if the tightest corset ever made were cinched around it. I managed a bite or two and a few sips of wine in the length of time that we sat together at that table, hoping it would calm me but dread filled me to overflowing. It was not unwarranted.

I jerked in my seat when the King rose from His chair and took up the golden orb from its place. The way He lifted it seemed to indicate that it was heavy, for the tendons stood out on the back of His hand as He turned it. He reached out and held His free hand out toward me, indicating that I should take it. I did and rose shakily to my feet. The King led me out a different door than I had come in, my ever present guards following behind. We traversed a long corridor decorated with statues of wolves and violent tapestries depicting wolves and eagles locked in battle. A set of double doors at the end of the hall were opened by two more guards and beyond was an enormous bedroom. My heart finally had had enough and I stopped at the sight of it, attempting to tear my hand from the King’s. He tightened His grip painfully on my hand and turned His head, letting His fiery blue eyes burn into my soul. I shook my head. I might have even begged Him to let me go. The sound of weapons being drawn behind me and the sight of the other two guards resting their hands on theirs turned my knees to water and I found myself staggering onward. The King made a huffing noise of impatient satisfaction at my unwilling forward movement. The echoing sound of the heavy doors shutting us in was the sealing of my fate.

The King released my hand when we were beside the bed and I backed away, bringing my arms up to cross over my chest in an attempt at covering myself and put as much distance between us as possible. I could go no further when the wall was up against my back.

“Come now, Lily. You need not fear me. No other woman has found such favor in my eyes.” As He spoke He crossed the distance between us until He was just as close as when He had molested me in the dining room. I had nowhere to run, no way to escape. His hand was as hot as fire when He laid it over mine and started to pull my wrist away from my shoulder. I do remember begging Him then. I pleaded with him not to do this but my appeals and tears meant nothing to Him. He dragged my hand down but I pulled it back up when He reached for the other. His eyes seemed to blaze brighter and His lips pulled back from His clenched teeth in a frightful show of anger at my disobedience.

“So be it.” His guttural words struck dread into my heart. He raised the golden orb in his hand and it lit up brightly, the lines and markings covering its surface becoming blinding and brilliant in the semidarkness of the bedroom. I had to turn my face away. He lifted His hand up and very softly touched my arm. A burst of tingling shot up to my shoulder and with one finger He lowered my arm from my side. It was as if I were made of clay. I could do nothing to resist His downward motion, nor could I move my arm once it was by my side. My fist was still clenched as it had been but my elbow was fully extended.

I could feel my heart wanting to burst it was pounding so hard in my chest. What magic does He wield that He can control the bodies of those around him? Is He really a God as people say He is? The King moved His finger to my other arm and lowered it in the same fashion as He had the first. I fought against it, I truly did. I tried so hard to move my arms at all but it was as if they had been struck from my body… They were no longer mine to control. I could still feel everything: the fabric of my clothing, the cold wall against my knuckles, the warmth of the King’s finger on my wrist and as He trailed it up my arm to my bare shoulder. He unhooked my mother’s brooch and tossed it aside so He could pull the fabric forward from where it hung over my shoulder. As He unwound the fabric from my body I felt cold and my tears fell from my face only to run down my chest and drop onto the floor.

When the fabric was a pool of blue around my unmoving feet the King took my face in His hand and turned it upward to look into His eyes. In the side of my vision I watched Him lower that glowing orb downward and I felt His arm move between our bodies. The orb touched me low on my bared stomach and suddenly my most intimate parts were ablaze with sensations of arousal I had never experienced before. I cried out in shock and shame as a surge of warmth and moisture filled me. The King smiled… but it was not a smile to bring joy or happiness. Nay, it was an abomination. He removed the wicked orb from my skin and released my face only to run His fingers down the center of my body. I wept and begged for Him to stop but He just looked at me silently and carried on until he came to my navel. His fingers lifted from me but in a sudden movement forward, He captured my mouth with His and reached His hand between my legs. I screamed as He slid His fingers up into me, dragging them out and forward through the wetness He had conjured up.

He stepped back and held up His glistening fingers, rubbing His thumb against them before me.

“You see? You want this. You want me.” I tried to deny it but my voice trailed off when He raised His fingers to his mouth and licked them, closing His glowing eyes and showing me darkness instead. When He opened them again He took me by the shoulder and I found myself walking toward the bed under His guidance. While only moments earlier I had desperately fought for movement of my limbs I then struggled for the absence of it. He turned me to face the bed and placed the orb on a pillow. There was no change to my inability to control my body despite Him not holding that thing anymore. He raised His frightfully strong hands to my breasts and pulled me to His chest, grinding His aroused body against me. He then pushed me face down onto the mattress and caressed my exposed backside as He spoke.

“Have you ever been had by a man, Lily?” I somehow managed to shake my head and whisper that I had not. His hands left my skin and it was a relief only until I heard the sounds of him untying his sash and dropping his loincloth to the floor.

“Then tonight you will be had by a God.” He moved my legs apart with His feet and roughly pushed into me. I screamed from the awful pain He dealt. More than that pain, though, the humiliation of it destroyed me. I was helpless to resist in any way except for my voice and He let me keep that. I screamed until there was nothing left and still I continued. When He was finally finished with me I was only able to weep in miserable silence. He laid His body over mine on the bed and I felt myself liberated from the invisible force that had held me through it all. By then I was too weak to move anymore. The King’s smoky breath against my neck and ear made me shake with renewed fear and His whispered words sliced my skin and cut out my heart.

“You are mine now. Forever.” He brushed my hair, wet from the sweat of my desperation and pointless struggling, off the right side of my neck and shoulder and His teeth closed on the vulnerable flesh He had revealed. He bit me until I was sure He had broken my skin. As soon as He released me He pulled himself from my body and I shamefully felt the evidence of his violent passion running down my leg.

I heard Him move away and a short rap on the door, followed by the sound of it opening. I was too weak to even attempt covering myself from whomever was there. All I could do was close my eyes in disgrace. The King spoke unfamiliar words and the sound of booted footsteps approached the bed. I wept as I felt my body turned over, lifted up and carried like a baby. Long hair brushed against me and I knew it was my guard. He only carried me a short distance from the bed before he knelt on one knee and gathered up the fabric that had been discarded from my body. He piled it over my nakedness and I was grateful for that small bit of cover. I refused to open my eyes and see the pity in his that I was sure was there. It only became worse when I felt my mother’s brooch being pushed into my tightly closed fist.

I wept the entire trip back to my rooms. My silent guard put me in the bed and pulled the blankets up over me without removing all the loops of blue fabric. When he left I heard the lock sliding into its place, trapping me within this palace of horror.

I still weep now, hours later. Though I sit at my desk wrapped in a blanket, I can’t stop shivering at the remembrance of these recent happenings. The night is almost done and the sunrise brings me no hope. I fear this is to be my future: the prisoner and unwilling concubine of a mad King with powers beyond the wildest of imaginings and the worst of nightmares at His fingertips.


	2. Chapter 2

**The 25** **th** **of December in the 14** **th** **year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

I woke in the early afternoon to a fire crackling in the fireplace and most of the chill that had been present in the room when I had last taken quill to journal has been driven away. Alas, my heart was and is frozen still. One of the women who had… prepared me yesterday was in the adjacent bathing room and she led me to the basin once again. Instead of scrubbing me, she left me alone. The hot water helped soothe away the last of the aching in my body and it was a blessed relief to remove the odor of the King from my skin.

The events of the previous night infiltrated my thoughts and weighed heavily on my heart. I slipped down under the water, holding my breath and wondering how it would be to die from drowning. I didn't have long to wonder because the old woman was suddenly there, pulling me up by my arm and scolding me with her frowning silence. She then watched me for some time to ensure I did not try again. The water grew cold and I rose from it only to find myself escorted back to my bedroom where it seemed my evening's attire had been selected for me. I had mistakenly thought that I would not be expected to attend the King but alas, it was not to be.

The night's ensemble was little more than a cream colored shift and a black corset. Though satiny and of fine material and construction, the shift was almost transparent. I refused to go near the bed. The woman gestured to the clothing but I pretended not to understand. She picked it up and advanced toward me but I dodged away, leaping across the bed. The woman tsked and went to my bed chamber's door. I took the opportunity to retreat to the bathing room once more, shutting the door behind me and looking about for a lock. The handle moved in my hands and I braced myself against the door to keep it shut. The old woman surely wasn't strong enough to force the door. The next thing I knew, I was sprawled on the floor in a most undignified manner and to my utter horror, the long haired guard was advancing on me with a scowl upon his usually stoic face. I scrambled backwards, doing my best to cover my nakedness from his sight. He didn't seem to care much for modesty, for he grasped my wrists and hauled me to me feet.

Turning me around, he marched me back into the bedroom where the woman stood with her arms crossed and the dress hanging over her elbow. She held it out towards me and when the guard released my arms I shamefacedly took it from her and quickly pulled it on over my head. The woman approached with the corset and I compliantly allowed her to pull it down over my head. For the first time, the woman spoke, only she did not speak to me. Rather, she spoke to the guard. Her voice was little more than a rasped whisper but the words she spoke were foreign and would have sounded unfamiliar had I not heard the King speak in the same way the night before. My guard spoke a few words in a questioning fashion to her and her answer was an impatient gesture of her hands toward me. He shrugged his shoulders and stepped behind me to lace me into my corset. The woman held it to my sides and looked up at my guard with a frown as he tightened the laces. She tsked at my guard and I felt his sighed exhalation on my neck just before he cinched the laces so tightly I gasped. All the way up, he tugged and then all the way back down he tightened until I was almost arching my back. It must have been the old woman's punishment for my disobedience earlier. I would swear she smiled at my discomfort.

Her punishments for me weren't over, for she dismissed my guard and spent time dragging a comb none too gently through my disheveled hair. Parting it down the middle, she braided it into two braids like I was some kind of child. I felt anger growing in me and I struggled to restrain it. It took over my mind and boiled my blood until I felt near to bursting. At last, I was handed over to my guard to begin the long descent from my room to the presence of the King.

He sat in the same chair at the same table as the night before. My anger had become righteous, indignant and reckless. I wanted Him to kill me so I would be free of this hideous Palace and its ruthless occupant. When the King looked up at me I shook my arm free of my guard and walked faster toward Him. My bare feet slapped on the stone floor tiles and I felt dangerously close to passing out from my tightly laced corset.

"You raped me!" I shouted at Him as I approached the table. My guard caught my arms and halted my advance. The King merely smiled in a saddened way.

"You are mistaken. I have honored you. I have given you greatness yet this is how you repay the kindness of your King? With insults?"

"You raped me! That's no honor! That's no kindness!"

"I have fed you, clothed you, given you a safe and warm home. You yourself came to me for aid. How is it not a kindness that I have taken you under my protection?" I struggled to free my arms from my guard, panting from the exertion.

"Protection? I'm a prisoner here! You're a monster!" The King rose to His feet and advanced toward me so quickly I backed into my guard. He took my face in His hand and His eyes seemed to flare brightly with His quiet anger. I found myself questioning whether wanting Him to kill me was a good idea anymore.

"I have killed scores of men and women for less than this defiance you are displaying."

"Because you have no compassion!" Despite my angry words, His voice remained steady.

"Compassion. That is what stays my hand from breaking your jaw." He tightened His hand threateningly on my face and I believed He really could break my bones with one hand as He had said. He turned my head and reached with his other hand to touch the purple, bruised teeth marks He had left on me the night before, continuing in the same steady, low voice He had started with.

"I treasure what is mine and that includes you. For that alone you should be _grateful_." He released my face with a slight shove backwards and turned His back to me to return to His seat.

"You will eat at my table. I command it… as your monstrous King and Lord." The King rested His hand on a leather bag tied to His sash that looked suspiciously like it contained the golden orb He so treasures. I sat, though I was determined not to show submission. I took up a goblet of wine and drank it down, hoping it would steady my nerves or at least dull the ache in my heart and the fluttering in my stomach. My corset was too tight to allow me to eat much but I took a bite of some bread. I followed that with more wine as soon as my cup was refilled. The King watched me incessantly with His bright eyes. I was half way through my third serving of wine when He started to speak.

"It must be difficult for you. You do not see how hard I work to protect the people of New Kanatahseton. I only want to keep everyone safe… separate from the corruption of the outside world. I know what it means to struggle, to lose everything… as you have." His words, though spoken with a modicum of empathy or something like it, felt empty and lifeless. The wine had clouded my perceptions and loosened my tongue.

"You don't know what I've been through! It's _your_ fault my family's dead and everyone starves! My brother and father died because of your Wall!"

"A sacrifice for the greater good. It is because of their toil that everyone else lives under my protection." I wanted to rise from my seat but I was unsteady when I attempted it so I fell back to my seated position.

"You call what's out there living? It's death out there and you're blind to it!" The king banged His fist onto the table, upsetting the goblets and spilling dark wine across the tablecloth.

"Be quiet! You know not what you are saying. You were but a child when I watched the people of this land put trust in a man who hid behind a mask of kindness and generosity. In reality he was nothing but a pillager of land and people, burning his way across the earth and deceiving thousands. I ended his rule and started my own... here. You will see. This land will prosper under me." I remained quiet for some time as I mulled over His words and the spilled wine was cleaned up by silent servants. It was difficult to think with my mind so affected by the wine I had consumed but one thing stood out in unusual clarity. In my intoxication, I foolishly gave voice to it.

"In almost fifteen years this is all you have to show for your so-called work? A land of starving people? Protected you say? The only thing we need protection from is you!" The King jumped to His feet so quickly His heavy chair nearly toppled over behind Him. He grabbed me up from my seat and pushed me back against the table until I had to use my hands behind me to keep from falling onto it.

"What would you do in my place? What would _you_ have me do?" I had no answer for Him. Slowly, His face changed from rage to something calculating and His eyes singed me.

"Foolish woman. I used to be as idealistic as you are. You would have me compromise based on your perception of compassion. There was a time when I, too, thought the truest freedom came from governing by the people, for the people. My father tried to tell me differently but I resisted the idea of total control. It made no sense and I killed him for it. But I later found his journal… and I realized he was right, though not in the purest sense. I knew I had to correct my wrongs and vindicate the beliefs he strove for. No longer would I be towed this way and that way by the people with their many demands and their fickle loyalty. Change takes time and its path is shrouded in darkness but it is _not_ futile. You will see. All will see. Control is my compassion." I knew then that He was a true, raving madman but I dared not speak again lest I anger Him further. He stared at my face for what felt like forever before His expression seemed to soften slightly. He reached up and took one of my braids in His hand, running His fingers down its length and placing it over my chest.

"You have had much wine this night. I should have taken that into consideration before reacting to your… imprudent words." His hands snaked around my waist and He pulled me against His body.

"Do not tremble, Lily. I am not angry with you any longer. You are just confused. I will show you the way to enlightenment." He stepped back and took my hand to lead me from the table. I stumbled in my dizzy state, brought on from a mixture of intoxication, fear and lack of air from my tight corset. Before I could think, the King had picked me up in His arms. I struggled until He tightened His arms around me and I could only kick my feet and shake my head. The action made me even dizzier so I slumped in His arms and despaired the entire time it took to walk to his bedchamber, followed by my perpetual shadows: the guards.

The king laid me on His bed almost tenderly, as if I were His beloved bride or a fragile thing. The room spun in lazy circles around me, wavering and wobbling like a top about to fall. The King lay down beside me and I rolled to turn away from Him. I realized my mistake when I heard the sound of a knife being unsheathed and His fingers working their way under the bottom edge of my corset. The sharp, popping sounds of my corset lacing parting under His blade were loud in the room and I could immediately breathe deeply. I filled my lungs with air, tainted as it was by the detestable, burned odor of the King so close to me. He easily pulled the corset from beneath my body and tossed it somewhere out of sight, only to turn His attentions fully to me. He pulled me close and let His hand wander over me. I tried to stop Him but I was too dizzy and tired to oppose much beyond mumbled protestations and weak resistance. His quiet shushing and breathing against my neck sent shivers down my spine, only to converge with my futile attempts to squirm away when He pulled my shift up and slid His hand over my hip, down my stomach and between my legs. His whispers were worse.

"Shhh, Lily. Why do you fight me? You seek freedom from control, do you not?" I nodded with only a whimper for words as His fingers found my most sensitive place.

"Then give of yourself." I tried to curl away from Him, to push back with my elbows and feet, but He held me fast. He placed kisses on my neck and shoulder, drawing His knees up and leaning over me to pluck at the ties holding my shift closed. I fought His hands with mine until He left my laces to reach down towards His belt and open the bag containing His dangerous trinket. With only momentary contact of His fingers on it, my body ceased to be my own once again. I wanted to vomit, faint or die but I could only lay there weeping and feel His touch as He turned me on my back and stripped me of my shift.

He was gentle with me, at least. There was nothing of the rough, forceful way He had taken me the previous night. He made me react through my tears, creating a fictional arousal with the orb as He touched me and tasted of me. I cried out at the sensations He made me feel. When at last He left me alone to unclothe Himself I had ceased weeping and resigned myself to my fate. Only when He climbed on top of me did I resume my tears, for now I could not escape the sight of His freakish, azure gaze or the frightful size of Him as He loomed over me. He kissed me and I tasted the unusual tang of my body's making on his lips. I wished for it to be done with quickly but He took me slowly, fondling my body and the orb to elicit every response He desired as I wept and screamed and He ceaselessly moved over me. The worst was yet to come, for He used His golden toy to bring me to an illusory climax not of my creation and He called out my name when He reached His genuine one almost at the same moment, making my blood curdle in horror and the purest revulsion beyond anything I had ever experienced chill my very soul. He had forced pleasure through my body, a perversion of what such an act should be. The dichotomy was absolute: my body craved and completed the sensations, reacting to the physical and conjured manifestations of intimate acts yet my mind repelled all of it until I felt torn into two discrete entities, tied together by one tortured soul.

He kept me in His bed afterwards, holding me against His overheated body. I could move as I pleased but when I attempted to crawl beyond His reach my muscles became rigid and painful until I returned to Him. In this way He kept me a prisoner even in His sleep.

Much of my dizziness had passed by then and I laid there examining His face, marked by those strange tattoos. In sleep He almost appeared to be a normal man approaching His very early middle years of life. He could be considered attractive but the knowledge of His unnatural eyes and twisted mind burned away any pretence of normalcy. From time to time He would mutter in His strange language or toss in His sleep. I turned from Him and did my best to pretend He was not there with His heavy arm over my body until exhaustion took me over and ended my turmoil temporarily.

I woke to find myself alone in the bed of His chamber. I was free to get up, dress and look about the room without limit until I discovered that touching any of the weapons displayed about the place or the handle of the door resulted in agonizing, burning pain to my entire body that dropped me to the floor. The other door in the room was not similarly trapped and my momentary contact with the handle resulted in no punishing pain. It led into a massive library filled to the brim with books. I had never seen more than three books in anyone's collection until now and I was in awe of the sheer quantity of literary works contained in this room. My hands reached hesitantly to the spine of the nearest one, fearing the agony of punishment but none came and I reverently pulled the book from the shelf. Its dusty pages smelled of age and beauty, of the mysteries contained within and the secrets of another world I could lose myself in.

I sat on a nearby chair with the book in hand. I don't know how long I stayed there reading the story of a man called Henry VIII by an author named Shakespeare but I was startled out of my reading by my name being spoken quietly. The King was in the doorway watching me. I hadn't heard Him enter, nor did I know how long He had been there. I must have appeared terrified as I jumped to my feet and hid the book behind my back.

"What are you afraid of?" He asked me. I couldn't look at Him as I mumbled out my fear of punishment for touching His books.

"I will not punish you for enjoying my library. You are free to use it any time you wish. All you need to do is ask." He beckoned with His hand.

"Come here, Lily." I felt sick at the idea of being any closer to the King but, knowing He could just make me do His bidding, I went anyway, clutching the large book to my chest with both arms as if it could protect me from Him. He reached out to me and took my shoulder when I was close enough. His other hand went to the side of my neck and He softly touched my skin before taking the back of my neck firmly.

"You will need to earn my trust first, though. I can not have you wandering around looking for a way to defy me. Do not think I would fail to take that into consideration after last night. Can I trust you?" His eyes were painful they were so bright under the shadow of His wolf hood. I wanted to push the King away but He gripped my neck tightly so I nodded. The King pulled me nearer by my neck and lowered His mouth to mine. Forgive me… for I shudder at the memory… I kissed Him back. In that moment, I felt a piece of me fall away and shatter, never to be retrieved.

"Lily, you surprise me. I expected you to fight. Maybe I can give you the freedom you want sooner than I thought I could. For now though… the quality of your obedience is still to be determined." He let me take the book I had been reading and sent me back to my room with my guard, relatively unmolested. That doesn't mean I don't fear for tonight. I fear He will have me dine with Him nightly and take me to His bed every time.

I won't consign myself to this fate. I won't do it. There has to be a way to get out of this place and I just need to be patient enough to find it. For now I must stay strong and gain His trust.

**The 2** **nd** **of January in the 15** **th** **year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

It has been several days since I last felt inclined to document this dreary existence. It is as I feared: I am to be the King's nightly companion. Last night I lost a little more of who I am, I think. I can't forgive myself for it yet and I don't believe I ever will. I let the King have me. I gave myself to Him, if not willingly, without resistance. He was happy with me… He let me take several books back to my room this morning but what consolation are books for giving up on what makes me who I am? What will I give up next? I've already lost my dignity. My pride is quickly following in its shadow. The King is taking it all and I find myself slipping away. I must hold on to whatever is left because if I don't I'll simply become the King's creature, a plaything for him to take His pleasure with and control just like everyone else in this cursed place! But then I wonder why I bother resisting anymore. What is it for? I'm still locked in this room. I've gained nothing in the way of freedom despite giving the King what He wants.

I wish I were a small bird like the ones outside my windows. Then I could slip out and fly away from here to be free. Free to live, free to die… just free.

**The 2**   **th** **of January in the 15** **th** **year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

I've made a terrible mistake. I know not when my life will end but I fear it will be very soon. The King is angry with me, no- furious, livid, enraged… Is there even a word to describe the transformation I caused in Him? What little resemblance He had to being just a man is gone for He is truly a beast of terrible strength and the most horrible violence.

I'm in a cell in some dark level of the Palace. Only a faint bit of light reaches into my cage and it is by that minimal illumination that I write. The floor is dirt and covered by a thin layer of straw. The walls and ceiling are stone and the only air and light come from between the bars of my door. I have the unfortunate situation of being unclothed in here and I'm terribly cold but I'm trying to ignore it and focus on anything else. There is a prisoner across from me in another cell. He screams at me and says terrible things but my ever present guard hits the bars of his cell with his club whenever he does. My guard was kind enough to bring me my journal to pass the time. A last request granted before my execution? Maybe.

It all started after the King had finished with me and fallen asleep on the other side of the bed… the side I'm usually made to sleep on. His golden orb was sitting on the little table beside the bed and I reached out to it. I don't know what made me do it. Maybe I thought I could use it on Him… make it so He couldn't move or hurt me anymore. It was exceedingly heavy and the instant I picked it up the King woke from His slumber. He saw the orb in my hand and immediately moved toward me. In a moment of absolute panic, I tried to bludgeon Him with it. He caught my wrist in a grip stronger than I ever imagined a man could have. He squeezed it so hard I thought my bones would snap. As soon as I dropped the orb on the bed between us He picked it up and hit me with it. I fell onto the bed with a scream of agony and was instantly under the orb's power. I couldn't even touch the side of my cheek and mouth where I knew I was bleeding. I could taste the blood and feel it trickling down my face and neck as my left ear rang loudly from the strike and my vision crackled and burst in white explosions of light. The King shouted at me.

"You dare to touch my most sacred item? What was your plan? Did you believe you could control me? Stop me?" He rose from the bed and dragged me off of it and across the floor by one arm toward the door. At a shouted word from Him, the door opened and He flung me outside to the feet of the guards. I watched as He stood there in the doorway, completely uncaring that He was naked in front of everyone, and stared at me. His shoulders moved with His deep, angry breathing and then He waved dismissively with His unoccupied hand and spoke in His indecipherable language. My body was released from the control of the orb but as soon as it was, the King turned His back and slammed the door of His bedroom shut behind Him. Two guards made to take my arms but the long haired one who is in charge of me most often waved them off and picked me up himself. I didn't fight him as he carried me away from the King's bedchamber and down a corridor I hadn't been into before.

For the first time since he took me from my home, my guard spoke to me.

"What did you do to provoke him?" I could barely move my jaw but I whispered what I had done as my tears of pain, fear and humiliation mingled with the blood running from my chin. I asked if He would kill me for it. My guard shook his head and I knew even he was doubtful that I would be spared. He spoke again.

"You are to be imprisoned in a cell for your actions." I began to shake uncontrollably. The farther we descended in the Palace, the worse I shook. Doors became heavier and hinges creaked as they moved. At last I was put in my cell, to the accompaniment of shouts and lewd calls from the neighboring prisoners. I huddled against the wall and when the keeper of the prison left my guard's side he glanced in the direction he went in before crouching down in front of my locked door. He reached through the bars and beckoned to me until I crawled over to him, doing my best to cover myself.

"The King has affection for you, Lily. That is what gives me any hope for your survival. You must plead with him for his mercy. Apologize. Even if you do not mean it in here." My guard touched my chest lightly with one finger.

"I can't. I _hate_ him!" I whispered to him through my teeth.

"How can you believe he cares anything for me?"

"Because I know him. Or I thought I did before all of this. We were friends, once, when we were young. He did not kill you for your many acts of defiance. He may yet spare you." I looked into my guard's eyes, truly looked, for the first time since I had arrived at the Palace. I realized then that he, a man nearing his late forties, had watched his friend become the King. And now he serves Him, doing His bidding unquestioningly and watching as He dominates New Kanatahseton into destruction. His kind words to me were tantamount to an act of defiance as well.

"What's your name?" I asked him then. He laid his hand on the chilled skin of my shoulder and shook his head sadly.

"It is better for you not to know." He took his hand away and started to rise to his feet.

"Wait!" I cried. He glanced to the side to check if we were being observed.

"Can you bring me something?"

"Only if it is small and easily hidden. I was asked to bring you here directly."

"In my room… I have a journal hidden under my mattress. Will you get it for me? I want to free my thoughts if I have no chance of living." My nameless guard tilted his head then doubtfully.

"Please…" I begged him. He nodded once and walked away silently.

As evidenced by my long entry, he honored my last wish, slipping my journal through the bars of my cell along with a small inkwell and a quill.

The night drags by and I listen to the sounds of my fellow prisoners. Some weep loudly or shout. Many of them are ill and I can hear them coughing. I wonder what the morning will bring.

**The 28** **th** **of January in the 15** **th** **year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

I yet live. I was given the length of blue silk I had been wrapped in for my first evening with the King and I took it gratefully and shrouded myself in it. It felt like the warmest wool blanket and at last I found some relief from the chill dampness of my cell. The King did not release me today. I suppose that is some consolation that maybe He won't kill me. It isn't much. A prisoner was beaten today. I could hear his screams echoing in the prison and for hours afterward I heard his groans of pain. Hopefully that won't be my fate.

**The 29** **th** **of January in the 15** **th** **year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

And still I live. My guard is almost always nearby and he looks in on me frequently, even if he doesn't speak to me the way he had the night he brought me here. I'm being fed some meager meals so at least I won't be left to starve to death. I don't know what's worse… the waiting and wondering or the prospect of starving myself just to end it. I could do it…

**The 30** **th** **of January in the 15** **th** **year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

I'm back in my chambers. I had decided to stop eating and let myself die when there was a sudden commotion in the prison. The man in the cell across from me threw himself on the floor in front of his door and reached his hands out between the bars. My stomach dropped when he started screaming for mercy… Mercy from the King and Lord of New Kanatahseton. He had come. I heard His voice and my heart twisted within me so I curled myself up against the corner as far from the door to my cell as possible and turned my face toward the wall. I wouldn't beg. I wouldn't.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Him stop before the other cell. The man inside hovered his shaking hands over the King's feet and wept for clemency. The King asked the man to recite his ill deeds. Thieving. That was all. And then my heart froze in fear, for the King pointed into my cell right at me even though He hadn't once looked in my direction.

"Maybe I will spare you and take her life instead."

The man stammered and then asked what my crime was. The King told him it was attempted Regicide. The prisoner assured the King he would never try to kill Him, ever. To my horror, the King walked across to my cell door and gripped the bars. He watched me carefully for some time and I maintained my refusal to meet His eyes. He spoke almost to Himself, then, as He gazed upon me.

"Defiant, even in the face of death…" He then raised his voice to the guards and the prisoner behind Him.

"I am feeling generous today. Free him." Only then did I lift my head and look at the King. He was watching me with His chin tipped downward slightly. A subtle gesture from him and my cage was unlocked. He came to me then and crouched down to reach towards my bruised face. I turned away from His touch.

"Do you wish me dead?" How could I answer that? An affirmation would certainly mean the loss of my life and a denial would mean the same, only in a different fashion. My silence became my answer.

"I do not want to kill you. There is something… fiery about you that appeals to me. Can you not see that I care for you?" Since I had begun our meeting in silence I decided to conclude it the same. The King merely sighed and rose from before me but not before reaching out and touching my face. He left my cell and shortly after, I was escorted by my nameless guard to my quarters. He was not inclined to speak and I had the feeling he would never do so again now that it appeared my life was no longer forfeit. I treasured his few kind words and his risky act of obtaining my journal all the more. Maybe I have one person here who actually cares about me and is not simply carrying out orders.

Whether the King truly cares for me or not is inconsequential. He cares not for my opinion or feelings, so what is it that He cares for? My body? Controlling me? Breaking me? He claims to appreciate my defiance but for how long? I mulled these questions over as I sat in my bathing basin washing away the filth from the days spent in that cell. I'm no closer to any answers now than I was then.

I stared at my reflection in the water and was appalled by what I saw. I knew I would bear evidence of being struck by the King but I can't get the image from my mind. My left cheek is discolored and my split lip distorts my features further.

I must admit that when a meal was brought to me in my rooms, it was a relief beyond all measure. Maybe the King has some kind of compassion, as twisted as it is, that compels Him to leave me alone, even if it's just for this one night. Or maybe he can't bear to look upon my disfigurement.


	3. Chapter 3

**The 18** **th** **of February in the 15** **th** **year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

I sit. I sit or I pace in my rooms. Sometimes my hands shake for no reason at all and I cannot write anything down for days. So I sit more. I sleep. I've lost my appetite and I only eat at dinner to maintain my pretense to the King. He left me alone for almost an entire week after He returned me to my rooms from the prison but for the past several days He has been taking me again.

He was quiet the first time he took me again. So was I. I didn't fight Him or even speak a single word of protest. I felt like a doll, being moved where I was wanted yet giving no resistance to the will of the one who played with me, if what He does to me can be called playing. Maybe for Him.

Something different happened last night though. When He was done taking His pleasure from me I began to turn away from Him but He stopped me with His hand on my neck. His words were frightening to me.

"Do you wish to sleep here with me this night?" Why would He ask such a thing? He'd never done so before and I began to wonder if it was some kind of trap so I remained silent but He refused to release His hold on my neck until I answered Him.

"No. I do not wish it." He stared into my eyes for a long second before releasing me. I lay there, as still as a mouse pinned by a hungry cat, and waited.

"If you do not wish to sleep here then you may go to your rooms." I got up slowly, hardly daring to believe He would let me leave so easily. I quickly donned my silk slip and was almost to the door when He spoke again from where He lay on His back with His left arm tucked up under the pillow behind His head.

"You will come to the throne room tomorrow when you are summoned. It is time for the people to see their King's Consort." I couldn't breathe. My lungs felt filled with water and some moments passed before I could collect my thoughts.

"I'm not your wife."

"We are married in the flesh. That will suffice. If it is not enough for you, know that there is no higher power in this world than me; what I say… is." His words filled me with darkness. He views what we have as a relationship; a binding contract that I had no choice in. I could think of nothing to say so I opened the door and left His bedroom. As always, my steps were dogged by my guard. I began to run and he gave chase as if I were fleeing the Palace. He caught my wrist but I turned and pushed his hand off of me. His eyes were dark and his face seemed to hold concern for me but I couldn't bear to endure it so I ran for the stairs leading up to my rooms. There is no way out of there except the way in so my guard followed me at a much slower pace and met me at my door to let me in with his key. I couldn't look at his face for surely I'd find pity in his eyes and I don't wish for any of that, either.

**The 19** **th** **of February in the 15** **th** **year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

I didn't think I could fear the petitions to the King more than I had the day I needed to present my case to him so long ago. I was wrong. Though I'm no longer a petitioner, I do not rejoice in my new status as Consort.

I woke to the urgent shaking of that vindictive old woman in charge of my care. She herded me to the bathing room and into the basin almost before I could relieve myself of my morning privy needs. I could swear she scrubbed me harder than ever and my skin turned quite a brilliant shade of pink by the time she was done. Every bit of me was coated in a scented oil that both soothed the redness and made me smell like the wild summer lilacs and roses that used to grow near the woods in my small town. Mother used to come home with handfuls of them when I was young, before Father was sent to The Wall. They would give a bit of color to our humble cottage and even though we didn't have much, we felt like the richest people in town. It's one of the few vivid and happy memories I have left to me of the time… before. But there is no use dwelling on the past, for it long ago turned to smoke and dust.

I was not allowed to clothe myself until all of the oil had disappeared from my skin so I spent time by my fireplace trying to keep warm while the woman moved about my room, setting out jeweled pins and producing a blue, silken clothing item. Two thick leather belts, each the width of three of my fingers together and bearing large brass buckles, seemed rather odd beside it but by then I had become accustomed to the rather unusual items I had been dressed in. None of that prepared me for what I looked like when I was wearing this particular outfit.

The dress, if you can call it that, was long enough to drag on the floor but it was merely two lengths of fabric draped over my shoulders. The woman pulled the lengths out and crossed them so that a deep vee of exposed skin came down between my breasts, almost to my stomach. She placed my hand on it and I held it like that for her as she took up the belts and moved behind me to adjust the back. I was tempted to close the front up more but I had learned from experience not to alter anything she does. She may be a small woman, but her fingers are strong and she doesn't hesitate to pinch me for my transgressions. I felt her bring the belts around my waist and let them hang loosely at my hips while she worked with the fabric. She pulled the first belt up to just beneath my breasts. The leather was cool against the bare skin of my back as she tightened it enough to hold the fabric in place. She placed the second belt at the narrowest part of my waist and came back to the front to adjust the fabric there. The jeweled pins were used to gather up the fabric at the tops of my shoulders so my arms were bared completely.

When she was satisfied with the way the fabric looked on me, she tightened both belts at least one more notch each, settling the large buckles so they lined up under my left breast and the excess leather crossed the front of me and lay flat once tucked through the belt loops. I was now wearing a dress of sorts that covered me completely, aside from the scandalous open neckline and exposed shoulders, all the way to the floor. As soon as I walked, though, the hanging sections of fabric would easily separate, exposing my legs and intimate places in a most inappropriate fashion. I immediately grabbed it and held it closed between my legs. Even the old woman seemed concerned about how much of my body was revealed. She left then, leaving me standing in my room, panicked, until she returned with a needle and thread. With rapidly moving fingers, she stitched the open front of the dress closed from the bottom of the vee in front to the floor and did the same in the back from just above my buttocks down. She made a few adjustments to the gathered fabric to hide the stitched areas among the many folds. Sadly, she left the sides unstitched and with every step, my legs were revealed all the way up to the belt at my waist in a most provocative manner.

The old woman pinned my hair back from my face. Stacks of different bracelets were added to my wrists, made from silver, beads, wood and bone. Lastly, a solid silver torque necklace that was wide in the front and narrowed at the sides went around my neck. The piece looked old, as if it had belonged to someone else for a long time. A turtle design carved in the center of the widest portion was incredibly simple and made me think of the King's jewelry for some reason. It gave me an odd feeling in my heart.

Much to my surprise, I was escorted from my room by not only my usual long haired guard, but also several other men who flanked me. In total, six men surrounded me as I descended the stairs. I held tight to the sides of my dress, attempting to keep it closed over my legs. Not a single one of the guards looked at my exposed flesh but I felt naked all the same and I found myself trying to walk closer to the guard who had been both my captor and protector for so long. He showed me none of his usual empathy and kept his face as stony as he had when he had been assigned by the King to return me to my cottage. Nay, he wouldn't even look at me and I sensed a disconnection in him that I had never felt before.

The closer we drew to the King's audience chamber, the more distant he seemed to me. I watched his hair moving in the breeze created by his rapid steps. Long streaks of silver strands mixed with the black and gave him a distinguished appearance. As always, part of his hair was gathered back into a long braid that hung down his back and some of the silver marked the length of the braid as well. How long had he been a servant of the King? He had spoken of days when they were young, of knowing Him as a friend back then and believing the same man still exists inside the King. How well could they have known each other when the King appears to be yet a man in only His thirties and my guard is deep into the middle years of his life?

I had no more time to ponder this for we had arrived at the doors to the audience chamber. I could hear the sounds of many people present, the milling of the crowded petitioners. It seemed like an age since I had last been in that room. Has it really only been two months? The long haired guard raised his fist and hit the door twice, quite loudly. A moment later, all the sounds of a gathered mass of people came to an abrupt silence and the King's deep voice rang out.

"Look up and behold, the woman I have chosen from among you. Honor her, for she  _is_  New Kanatahseton!" What He could possibly mean, I had no idea. The doors opened then and my guards fanned out to spread along the walls. The King turned to face me from where he was standing beside His enormous throne which was draped with a flag bearing three large blocks of color; green, blue and white. The green field bore a circle of many yellow stars on it. He held out His arm in my direction. I was frozen to the spot, for hundreds of eyes were upon me and the collective murmurs and sighs from the people reached out to grasp at me. The King moved His fingers in a beckoning gesture and I began to walk towards Him slowly, keeping my eyes only on His hand. If I deviated my gaze from it, my fear of so many witnesses would surely make me fall so I allowed the King's power to guide me closer.

The moment I was close enough, He took my left hand from where I was holding my dress closed and brought me up beside Him. He raised my arm up and in that instant, every human present dropped to their knees and lowered their faces to the floor. I shook with horror at how they viewed me. The King lowered my arm and brought His face down next to my ear. The heat of His breath on my skin drew chills over me like an icy cloak.

"See how they worship you? You are their emblem of hope and I am their means of salvation!" I could not tear my eyes away from the people before me. Every one of them was dressed in tattered and worn clothing, dirty and threadbare from overuse. Children were there, filthy and hungry. Beside their frightened parents or older siblings, they alone had the courage to lift their faces upward and look upon their so-called emblem of hope. If everyone only knew how much I hated standing beside the King, His puppet, His toy, His tool, they would never have bowed. If I ran for the doors, screaming that it's all a lie, would they stop me? Would He kill me right in front of them? The King's hand slid upwards over the bracelets I wore, setting them clicking as his fingers rose to my skin and tightened around my forearm. I looked up into His gleaming, turquoise eyes. His dark pupils expanded as if He could read my rebellious thoughts and he whispered quiet words of threat into my ear.

"Do not choose this day to defy me." I shook my head in a silent word of acquiescence and He brought His left hand over to cup my face so He could lean down and kiss me. I suppose, dressed as scantily as a prostitute, I should not have been surprised that He would use me so in public, going so far as to open my lips with his and kiss me as lustily as if I were in His bed. His hand dropped from my face as He released me from His kiss and I feared He might fondle me as well before everyone there but He merely rested two of His fingers on the necklace I wore.

"My mother's jewelry suits you well." I made a noise in my throat as my hand rose unconsciously to the collar I wore and my fingers grazed over the King's, causing the crowd, who had at last gotten to their feet, make another sound of awe and admiration. They thought us in love!

"Well played, Lily." The King breathed as His lips quirked upward in the briefest of smiles before He guided me to sit on a large cushion of a deep red color that had been set beside the throne. I kept my head tilted up to Him, afraid of displeasing Him, and moved my lips into what I hoped resembled a smile as I seated myself on the cushion. The King released my hand and I quickly made an attempt to cover my legs as much as possible with the fabric of my dress. It became apparent that it was a useless endeavor, for I had sat upon the bulk of available fabric, and my fidgeting drew the King's attention. I could feel His eyes on me even before His hand settled on my left shoulder. That familiar tingling feeling of the orb's power prickled through me and my hands grew numb even as I tried to tuck the slippery fabric into a place it would stay. The numbness became almost painful as my fingers refused to cooperate and only when I gave up and folded my hands in my lap did the sensation recede as if it had never existed. The King turned His wrist and stroked the skin of my neck with the backs of his fingers to show His approval of my obedience.

I sat through what felt like hours of the King hearing the petitions of the people of New Kanatahseton. He was generous to them, granting most everyone what they asked for. He permitted the people to look upon me and I tried to smile kindly to assure them that I was no different than they. In truth, I was deeply saddened to see each and every one of their faces and hear their stories. Many of them were just as I had been: starving, without any other choice but to ask for the King's generosity because there was simply nothing left anywhere. Many of them were widows, as my mother might as well have been, either from their husbands never coming home from The Wall or having died from some other cause: fire, an accident, starvation or murder.

When the King granted their requests, many fell upon their faces in gratitude, even gathering up a bit of my dress to kiss the hem. The King allowed it. I was mortified and wanted to stretch my hands out to them, to touch their burdened shoulders, kiss their crying little ones and assure them of a better future but I couldn't. I had no hope to offer them except the illusion of my presence. My words would have all been lies and I refused to take part in it more than I absolutely had to.

At last, with the dying light of early evening, the flow of petitioners ceased and the throne room echoed in emptiness. The King rose to His feet and took my hands to raise me up from the cushion. He escorted me through the doors in the back of the throne room as the guards closed in around us in the shadowy corridor. I couldn't look anywhere but at the floor. My heart broke for the people of this place and I stumbled over the front of my dress. The King stopped and faced me. Our entourage of guards stopped as well but the King waved them on. Only my personal guard remained and he seemed to disappear into the shadows.

"You disapprove of my ways." I couldn't look at Him but He lifted my chin up until I did. Try as I might, I couldn't prevent the tears that fell from my eyes. The King used His thumbs to brush them away but I knocked His hands aside and covered my face.

"They're suffering! All of them! How can you say I'm their hope when I despise even my own life? I would give  _anything_  to be free of this place!" The King grasped my arms and pulled me close to His body so I was forced to look up at His face.

"You  _are_  their hope. You represent what I can do for everyone… and not all will like how it is done. Yet look at you- you are loved, protected, fed and clothed- just as all my people will be under my rule. You are an icon of what life will be and your  _stubborn_  defiance is only representative of the struggles this nation will face along the path of real freedom." He tightened His hands on my arms for emphasis when He spoke on my willfulness. After staring at me with His frightful, glowing eyes, He turned His head toward my guard.

"Take her to her rooms." My guard materialized from the darkness to take a lantern from the wall but I shook my arms free of the King's hands, gathered up my dress and walked away.

"I know my own way." Dutiful as always, my guard followed me and for some reason, I began a diatribe of angry words directed to him, as if he could somehow answer the questions I had.

"How does He think I could be happy here? I'm a prisoner! I might as well be kept in the dungeons! How can He treat the people so? They suffer under His hand yet He keeps us all locked away within His Walls. We lack supplies yet He disallows trade from Outside!" By the time we had reached my door, I was panting and I leaned against the door frame to catch my breath.

"He calls what He does to me love!" I slid down the door and cradled my head in my arms, balling my hands into fists. I was unable to stop weeping. I don't know what I was expecting of my guard. He had displayed such coldness to me earlier that I was shocked when he sat down beside me and pulled my head against his shoulder. I turned into him, clung to his arm and wept against it. He neither touched me affectionately nor spoke a word of comfort but somehow I knew this was the only consolation he could give to me- and I was grateful for it. Unlike the King, my guard's shoulder was a normal human temperature and I could detect only the smell of wool fabric, leather and the warm, earthy scent of his skin and hair. No singed odor of fire or burning, no acrid smoke or sulfurous stench that constantly surrounds the King and His overly heated body.

When I finally ceased my tears and regained control of myself, he helped me to my feet and opened my door. My fire was out so he rekindled it for me and lit the lanterns in my room from the one he carried. When he was done I asked him to draw water for a bath. By working a long handle similar to that of a well, water was carried up from somewhere below in the Palace. It would come out of the spout cold at first but after a minute the water would be steaming, as if drawn from a boiling cauldron. There must be water kept on a fire for just this purpose. I had seen a similar basin in the King's chambers for His use.

At last the basin was almost full and I lifted a small urn of dried lavender petals from a shelf on the wall to sprinkle a pinch into the water. They swirled in the contained maelstrom of the basin, tossed about like leaves in a storm and powerless to alter the whims of the more powerful force of the water. Much like myself. I returned the urn to the shelf with a sigh and when my guard finished filling the basin, only the dripping of the spout made any noise in the room. He rounded the basin and paused in front of me. I dared then to raise my eyes to his face, shadowed by the light of the lantern hanging on the wall, and he did a most inappropriate act for his role: He leaned close and kissed the top of my head. I wanted to hug him. I should have but in the next instant he was gone, leaving me alone as the door to my bedchamber closed and the clicking of the lock echoed in the emptiness of my rooms.

I wept as I shut the bathing room's door and unclothed myself with shaking hands. The belts made loud noises as they fell to the tiled floor and the silken fabric made none, billowing as it did when I dropped it carelessly from my body after removing the pins from where they sat on my shoulders. I pulled the necklace from its place on my throat and stared at it. Another woman wore it once. The mother of the monster who sits on that throne. Is she aware of what she created? I can only hope not.

I placed the many pieces of jewelry I had been adorned with on the shelf with the dried flowers and stepped into the water. It was much too hot and my skin quickly turned red but I welcomed the pain of it. I submerged myself up to my face and then dunked under, letting the heat burn away some of my torment. When I came up for air I was dizzy so I leaned over the edge of the basin and stared into the far corner of the bathing chamber with my back to the door as the light outside faded to blackness, leaving me with only the comforting glow of the lantern.

Several times I submerged my body for long enough to overheat and it was during another of my cooling down times where my arms and head hung over the side of the basin that I heard the door to my bathing room open behind me. A waft of cold air blew over my wet skin and I clenched my teeth at the interruption of my solitude. That cursed old woman! Always invading so she can monitor me and guarantee that my insanity will last until the end of time. She must know she irks me so! I spoke into the darkness of the far corner, irate and rude in my anger.

"Can you not leave me be for one moment? I promise I'll refrain from drowning myself in your absence!"

"Is that what you routinely attempt to do when you bathe alone?" The voice that responded was not that of the raspy old woman, nor the silence I had been expecting. It was the voice of the King and I flung myself down into the water with a cry as he shut the door. Even in my own chambers I'm not safe from His presence. I curled up under the water, drawing my knees to my chest and hiding myself from His sight. I refused to answer Him but my heart pounded frightfully, whether from the heat or the scare, I do not know. He casually undressed, accustomed now to my silences for Him, and stepped into the basin on the other end of the large, stone oval. The basin is more than big enough for two, that much is for sure, but I felt terribly crowded by the King as He settled down with a sigh and closed His eyes.

The steam in the room moved in slow spirals and clouds, disturbed by the air the King had let into the chamber when He entered and His movements as He had joined me. I shifted on my end and the King opened His eyes. They seemed to ignite the foggy haze between us, reflecting the golden light of the lantern and infusing an icy cast into it.

"I would have had you come to dine with me but I was informed that you had chosen to bathe instead. I find it to be relaxing as well."

"It  _was_  relaxing."

"Oh? You did not sound relaxed when you spoke of suicide. Did you try it? Is that why Grandmother watches over your baths?"

"She's your grandmother?" I was horrified that I had been so awful to a woman related to the King.

"No, she is not my grandmother by blood. It is simply a respectful term for a woman of her age. But I do wish to know. Did you try to drown yourself?" I tightened my arms around my body.

"What if I had? What if every time I bathe I hope to drown?"

"Then I would be forced to bathe with you to keep you from it."

"I did not try."

"Why did you feel the need to assure Grandmother you would not, then?"

"She merely thought I was trying, once. And ever since she has watched me or looked in on me when all I want is to be left alone!" I slapped my hand down into the water, sending a splash over the side and in the King's direction. To my utter horror, it hit Him in His face, making Him close His eyes and flinch. The King didn't answer my angry words or react to my offensive behavior. He merely bent his knees and lowered himself down further into the water. He submerged Himself completely for a moment and I watched Him rub His head with His hands under the water.

He came back up and pushed His wet hair back from His face. He pinned me with His luminescent eyes once more as steam rose from His shoulders, lending an additionally fearful quality to His presence. His arm rose from the water and He offered His hand out to me.

"Lily, I know you are unsatisfied with me. But try,  _just try_  to imagine yourself happy here. With me."

"I can't. A woman cannot love a God the way you wish to be loved by me." I was unprepared for His answer.

"I am not truly a God. I have the powers of one with the Apple, yes, but right now, right here, I am only a man."

"A man with such bright eyes that shine with an unnatural light of their own. Why aren't your eyes dark, as they should be? Or if they must be blue, why are they not like mine?" I was in dangerous territory, asking such things, but if He would pretend to be humble, then I would pretend to be mighty. The King sighed and sat back against His side of the basin.

"The Apple… changed me. My eyes used to be dark. Some would have described them as the color of honey or an amber stone. I accepted the changes to my body as I learned to use the Apple. Great gain is never without sacrifice."

"What else does that… Apple do? Besides forcing people to bend to your will and feel things that are not real?"

"Lily." His tone was a warning yet I chose not to heed it. I spoke into the darkness of the room.

"Should I not know the  _man_  who desires me to love Him?" The King sat up straight then and used His grip on the sides of the basin to raise Himself onto His knees and forward until He was looming over me. He reached down into the water and dragged my ankles until my legs were out straight and I had only my arms to cover my body. The King straddled my legs with His knees and rested His left hand on the edge of the basin beside my right shoulder.

"It shows me things… visions of the greatness I can attain to… the power I can wield. It has kept me young, Lily, and intensified the elements of my emotions… and the desires of youth." As He spoke, He lowered His voice and His body until He was whispering and His mouth was a mere hair's breadth from the skin of my neck, forcing me to tip my face backwards. He softly kissed me there and then pulled back.

"Your defiance angers me; it always does. It enrages me, yet it is attractive and… arousing as well. Another effect of the Apple, no doubt, unless it is just the power  _you_  have over me." He took my right hand from where I grasped my left shoulder and slowly moved it down under the water and onto His stomach. He pressed my fingers flat on His skin and then covered them with His palm as He pushed my hand down onto His arousal.

"You see? Even without the Apple here with me, its effect is still manifest. And you… You." He kissed me then and closed my fingers around Him. I didn't even try to fight His will, for even without the Apple to control me He would have His way for greater strength alone. Despite my rejection of His desire for me, His touch had become attuned to what my body needed to react and even without His toy, His Apple, near at hand to aid Him, He succeeded in making me feel pleasure from His determined attentions. One unwilling climax from me at His hands and He took me there in the bath for His own, where each and every sound, along with the water splashing on the floor as He held me, was amplified to an echoing dissonance that still rings in my ears. And His eyes in the darkness…

Does it even matter how much I hate myself for it? Should I not fight Him for the principle alone? But then it begs the question: How much more so would my resistance fuel His desire? He has not had to use the Apple to control me in His bed for days simply because the idea of it is more repulsive than the intimate acts He wants. But somehow I feel worse for having experienced His twisted lust in my rooms, the place I had always fled to as a refuge from Him.

I fear that orb. I fear what further changes it will cause in Him. He's already frighteningly unstable and if after only fifteen years of using it, it has changed Him so… What will another fifteen bring? Before He left me this night, He disclosed a final bit of information to me that truly inspired my fear of that Apple He treasures so much. Had He told me before He took me, I may have fought merely for the hideous terror His confession filled me with. It is probably why He waited. His youthful appearance is a creation of that thing. His face and form, at most appearing as that of a man in His thirties…. He confessed to me that He was already thirty and one when He took up the mantle of King of New Kanatahseton. A disquieting revelation! And yet my thoughts cannot but help turn to my guard, for not only has he watched his friend take power and kingship, transform into a madman and acquire those frightful eyes, he has also witnessed Him remain agelessly young while he himself becomes wrinkled and silvered with age as the years pass.

I feel as if I must be trapped in some strange, nightmarish land where reality is corrupted and time and space cross and tangle into indecipherable knots. Oh, if I could only wake from it…


	4. Chapter 4

**The 28** **th** **of February in the 15** **th** **year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

I've been sitting by the King's side for some time now as He hears petitioners. I can see no method or pattern to how He decides who benefits from His generosity and who is denied. It would seem that despite His insistence that He is doing only good, His magnanimity is limited to whims and the weather. It's merely a game to Him and I can hardly bear to witness it. Those are real people down there, with real lives and He toys with their futures! It's disgusting!

**The 18** **th** **of March in the 15** **th** **year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

I watched an old man from my village climb the stairs to the dais today. He had aged significantly since I'd last seen him. A crotchety old loner, he had never been very friendly to me and I didn't know his name other than calling him Old Smokey. Everyone called him that because he always smelled of the hickory smoke from the meager cuts of smoked meat he would sell at the market. For him, it seemed that the King would be unyielding in His denial of aid, no matter his plight. I reached up to His arm and touched it. I'd never done such a thing during Petitions, for I feared retribution from the King. He turned to look at me and I forced myself to look deeply into His cold, uncaring eyes. They seemed to flare brighter for a moment and I merely whispered my request.

"My Lord, please help him." To my surprise, He did indeed change His mind. The old man fell at the King's feet and thanked Him profusely. When he then crawled over to me, dragging his walking cane alongside to thank me as well I couldn't bear his miserable gratitude. Under the very real threat of rousing the King's anger, I leaned forward, took the old man's dirty hands in mine and held them.

"My Queen…" he croaked out as he dropped his wizened old head down further towards the floor. Had I become so unrecognizable in the mere three months I had been here? His hair was stringy and thinning and his clothes hung from him, ragged, torn and reeking of smoke. He kissed my fingers repeatedly and I could do nothing other than let it happen, for I feared if I acknowledged his appreciation further, I would draw the King's wrath down upon me and possibly risk a second reversal of His decision.

At last Old Smokey backed away and shambled down the stairs where he was met with an escort carrying a large bag of supplies, similarly as I had been on my fateful meeting with the King. The guard was kindly to him, aiding him in walking towards the door and I watched for as long as I could see them. Other petitioners came and left and I barely acknowledged them, yet still I watched after Old Smokey until he was out of sight. I didn't realize tears were falling from my eyes until the King abruptly stood and ended Petitions early. The rest of the petitioners were quickly ushered outside and I wiped my face. It was too late. The King took me by my upper arm and raised me roughly to my feet.

"Why must you weep after that old man? Was he something to you?" The King's voice was harsh and low. Did He fear my love would be stronger for an old man than for Him? The King continued on when I didn't answer.

"He will likely be dead soon; I do not know why I bent to your will on his behalf." His unkind words shook me free of my inertia.

"He _is_  something to me, yes. He's a little piece of home."

" _This_  is your home, Lily.  _I_  am your home. You must forget your past."

"No. You may be my King but this is my prison and you're my executioner!" I broke free and He shouted after me as I pushed the heavy door open and walked away from Him, clutching my skirts so I wouldn't trip over them. My guard was the only one to follow and he walked just behind me as I traversed the long, cold halls of the King's fortress. I stopped at the turn that would lead me to the endless staircase and my rooms. My guard came to a stop beside me and stood watching me silently, tilting his head slightly as he looked down at me.

"I want to leave like everyone else who comes through those doors! I don't care if I starve with them. At least I'd die free." I didn't expect a response from him and I didn't get a spoken one. Instead, he took me by my forearm and led me away from the direction of my rooms. He took me down several hallways and through at least two locked doors, selecting keys from the ring on his hip as we went. At last, at a larger door than others, he looked hard at me and unlocked it. He left the key in the closed door and gestured to it with his hand.

"Open it." I slowly walked to it and pulled upon the handle. The door was exceedingly heavy but I threw my weight backwards and pulled with all my might. A bitingly cold and damp gust of wind blew my hair back when at last the door opened, letting in the sound of pouring rain with it. It couldn't have been later than mid afternoon yet the sky was a heavy slate grey and made the day appear to be almost evening. Rain was falling in sheets from the sky and it dashed upon the stone walkway at my feet. Beyond the wall only a few steps away, the dreary landscape fell away before my view. It was a long drop to the ground below.

I stepped out into the rain and the drops were so cold they caused bone chilling pain everywhere they struck my flesh. I became soaking wet immediately yet I walked to the wall and rested my hands on it. Down below, a line of people straggled through the bleak wetness like bedraggled ants and I knew what I was witnessing: the petitioners who had been dismissed without having had a chance to ask for aid were walking home. The old and the young, mothers with children, sick and starving. I had robbed them of a chance, of hope. The tears I had shed for Old Smokey had turned out to only be tears for myself. I sank slowly to my knees and rested my head against the icy stone wall in front of me. I wept for a different reason this time, for self loathing and hatred for what I had done to the people I thought I had been vying for. The pain of my mistake shook my body and I clutched at the fabric of my ruined gown where it stuck to the skin of my chest as I wept miserably for my foolishness.

My guard's voice came to me, cutting through the cadence of the rainstorm and lifting my forehead from the rough surface of the stone wall.

"Do you see those people? They came all this way and now they must go. Many of them will not make it home." His words cut me like a knife yet he didn't stop.

"You want to help them. I know this. But angering the King will only make it worse for  _them_. Do you see it now?" I nodded my head, unable to speak or stand for the wretched heartache I felt on their behalf.

It seems that if I am to find any reason to live, it must be for them and not for me. I must set aside my interests and seek only to appease the King, even if it saves just a mere handful more than if I do not. My purpose has never been more known to me than it is now. How dare I wish for what I cannot have when there are others out there who only wish for one more day to live! How selfish of me! In my mad rush to hate the King for all that He is and all that He does, I had ignored the modicum of truth when He spoke of my ingratitude. It doesn't make what He does right but neither does it justify all of my self centered ire.

"Come inside, Lily." My guard's tone softened to one of compassion. It held no pity or sternness, which only would have broken me further. He stood just inside the doorway holding the door and shut it behind me after I entered. Despite the warmth and silence inside the thick stone walls, I shivered uncontrollably from being outside dressed as I was. Water pooled at my feet and I gathered up the now nearly transparent fabric that had grown heavy from its soaking and held it against my legs as I numbly followed behind my guard. He escorted me up to my rooms and drew me a bath but I balked at the luxury, attempting to deny myself such things if the people I sought to aid couldn't have them as well.

"You will become ill if you remain like this." My guard argued. I stubbornly refused to heed him and he grew visibly frustrated with me. His thick brows drew together and his dark eyes bored into me. In just a few long strides, he was across the room. He took me around my body, pinning my arms to my sides, and picked me up. I struggled but was no match for his strength as he plunged me into the steaming water. My ankle struck against the side of the basin and I cried out at the pain of it but he held me there as I fought him still. His sleeves were soaked up to his shoulders and the front of his jacket quickly became just as wet as I thrashed in his grip. At last I could resist him no more and I quieted. I did nothing but stare at the sections of his hair that had fallen forward and hung down into the water beside me as he spoke once again.

"Your death would accomplish nothing but send the King into a frenzy of anger. The only way you can make a difference for the good is to be alive… and well. You must do your best to stay that way. If you refuse to cooperate I will be forced to make you do it." As he spoke, he methodically unlaced the ties holding my dress closed and slipped the entire thing off of me. I covered myself with my arms and looked away from him in shame while he stood to wring it out and drop it on the floor in the corner. I thought he would leave me then but he crouched down once again and reached for my face. He turned it until I looked at him and he spoke his final words to me.

"You must go to the King. His heart softens only for you. Go to Him and make amends." With that, he rose and left me.

When I had finished bathing, I grudgingly decided to take the words of my guard to heart. He had never taken such pains to teach or advise me before so I knew he must have felt strongly that what I must do was my only option. His words proved to be true.

I perfumed my skin with scented oils, dressed in one of the finest garments I had been provided and asked my elderly caretaker to braid my hair the way the King likes best. The necklace belonging to His mother went around my throat and I bedecked my two braids with jewels. And so it was that I walked with my guard, upon my own motivation, to the King's chambers. With my own knuckles, I rapped upon His doors and when He called out a word, my guard nodded at me. I felt as if I were opening the heavy doors to my demise as I slowly pulled them wide.

The King was standing in the center of His chamber, as if He had just risen from the large, cushioned chair by the window. He was not wearing His wolf head covering nor his large necklace or armbands and for a brief moment, His expression was one of outright shock at my appearance. I didn't wait to see if it would change; I immediately fell down to my knees and then prostrated myself before Him right in the doorway. In the corners of my vision, I watched the light, airy quality of the creamy silk I wore flutter down around me and settle on the floor. My heart beat rapidly and I heard the blood in my body rushing into my head in an attempt to drop me unconscious. The voice of the King stopped all time like the crack of a whip.

"What brings you to me?" His voice seemed to echo in the vast room and I spoke into the floor beneath my face.

"I wish to apologize, my Lord Husband. It was wrong of me to insult and defy you so. I should have known better than to do such things." Silence, broken only by my rapid breaths, spread on and on between us. I drew my hands from where they were pressed upon the patterned rug before me and closed them into fists to hold against my head. I neither heard nor saw the King approach but all at once His hot hands engulfed my wrists and He helped me gently to my feet. Only the quiet click of the doors shutting behind me indicated that we were alone. The King drew me toward Him and held me against His chest. I forced myself to breathe the acrid, singed scent of Him into my lungs and fought against the reflex to gag as I slid my hands over His burning skin and held tightly to His shoulders.

"What made you do this? Apology and affection are not your way." The King is no fool. Perhaps He felt my actions were merely a charade. For once, I actually did carry remorse for my actions and I lowered my face in true disgrace.

"My guardsman showed me the result of my actions. He made me look upon the people who had been turned away from your throne room… because of my undermining you. When he returned me to my rooms, he said I must undo my wrongs." The King made a considering noise in His chest that was vaguely threatening. Perhaps I had mis-spoke and instead roused the King's ire against His own man. A sickening jolt of fear tore into my chest as I imagined the King's retribution being taken out on my stern yet kindly guardsman. I looked up at the King with trepidation and spoke quickly in his defense.

"My Lord… he was right to do so… If I may be so bold as to judge his actions in your presence. He's loyal to you and he reveres you as his King and Lord. He has shown me the error of my ways!" The King snorted with some derision yet it carried an amused sound as well.

"I know the quality of his loyalty. That is why I have him stationed by your side." The King narrowed His blazing eyes at me and studied my upturned face.

"I can see the distress you carry and I know of your love for the people of this place. They look upon me with fear but they look upon you and see compassion." The King's voice dropped to a lower tone and He tightened His hands on my arms.

"But it is not for you to decide the fate of those who come here looking for aid. Bear that well in mind, Lily." His threat was clear and I knew I had to strive for His complete forgiveness. I stepped back from Him and led Him deeper into His chambers to His bed.

"Lie down, Husband." I whispered to Him. He did as I asked, watching me carefully as I reached for His sash and loosened it until I could unclothe Him. Without undressing myself, I climbed upon Him, gathered my silken skirts up and gave myself to Him. He let me do so, only occasionally putting His hands upon me to touch my legs or open my corset to expose my breasts to His sight. Only when He neared His climax did He take hold of me and control my movements. When it was over He pulled me down to lie upon His chest. For a short while He dozed and I longed to return to my rooms to be alone but if I did so, I would surely undo the forgiveness I had won. When He woke He was pleased to find me still lying upon Him. So pleased, in truth, that He took me once again before allowing me to make myself presentable enough to join Him for dinner.

**The 9** **th** **of April in the 15** **th** **year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

The days have grown warmer and the sun shines for greater lengths. Spring is at last upon us and I have found some measure of beauty in this prison I am bound to live out my days in. Through my narrow windows I can see the softest blush of new red tips on the tree branches and even a haze of green and yellow as the leaves begin to reveal themselves. Since I last wrote, I have begun to spend more time with the King, attempting to understand Him and how to best please Him. His expansive rooms have a vast, private balcony with gardens grown within containers. He lets me roam among them and sit in the sunny sections to read the many books in His collection or watch the people come and go in the distance.

The people have now taken to asking for seeds along with food and I have taken to making physical contact with the petitioners as often as possible. To avoid the jealousy of the King, I prefer to restrict such contact to holding babies, kissing small children and hugging or holding the hands of other women but on occasion I will allow an older man to kiss my hand. In some ways I have grown more accustomed to the fickle nature of the King's kindness. Dare I use the word "accustomed"? Is not "hardened" or "apathetic" more appropriate?

**The 23** **rd** **of April in the 15** **th** **year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

I'm a murderer. Though I have never wielded a weapon designed for killing in all of my life, the blood of many stains my hands and I will never be free of it! Not now, not ever. Oh, to have the sweetness of death, the freedom of a blade piercing my own heart… if only it were to be for me but no! There is only guilt and fear and sickness to be had in all of this wretched place.

It was a day like any other: the same words spoken, the same requests… only the people are ever different. Sometimes, on rare occasions there is a face I recognize, a voice that smacks of familiarity but for the most part, the people merge together as one hungry, desperate entity in need of aid and mercy. Except  _that_ day.

I remember returning an infant, such a precious little thing, to his mother as she prepared to take up the provisions that had been issued to her. A voice came to me, one I hadn't heard in ages… not since I was young. A name came to mind when I heard it: Nicholas. I remembered a boy throwing a ball with Eddie; he had grey eyes and light brown hair and he was always teasing me when I would chase after them as they would run to the river with their fishing nets. The memory made me smile and the mother who took her baby smiled back at me, thinking I was happy for her. I was.

I turned toward the dais again and was struck immobile by the sight before me. A man knelt there yet his face belonged to Nicholas. Not the stout, troublesome boy of fourteen who lived in the next town over, just gaining his low voice of adulthood and looking up to my brother, who was two years his elder. No. A half starved, wiry, hollow cheeked man knelt there yet his nose, mouth and yes, his very eyebrows were the same as I remembered. I gripped the fabric of the pillow I sat upon in my hands and became still beside the throne. Like everyone else, Nicholas' story was one of sadness and loss. Having returned from the Wall, injured and sickly, he had not been able to provide for his aging parents and the winter had been too harsh. They had both passed in a dark morning of early spring and he had barely managed to survive by digging for acorns in the woods, as I had. His story was also vastly different. He was not at the Palace to get for food for himself, but rather for those who were too weak to travel on their own to ask.

As he finished his story, he turned his face toward me slightly and his grey eyes, so much older looking than I had expected, fell upon me without any recognition. They lingered for only a flash before returning to the floor in front of his knees. In that moment, I had seen what working on the Wall had done to him. A scar starting at the edge of his chin ran down the right side of his neck and disappeared under the collar of his ragged shirt. It must have been a grievous injury, for it had healed badly and the skin around it puckered strangely as the muscles in his neck moved beneath it. His bottom lip was pulled slightly downward on the right side, making his mouth somewhat asymmetrical in appearance yet if he were to be of a more healthy build, it would not take away from his appearance as drastically as it does in such a starved state. His collar bone on the right side was also distorted; it must have been shattered at some point.

My heart broke for him and I waited to hear what the King would say. Surely He would be moved by such selfless kindness on Nicholas' part. No. The King denied him anything.

"I am not such a fool as to send enough food to feed a village of people on the questionable word of one man." I should have kept my protest to myself. Many lives could have been saved that day. But no. I grasped the King's arm like a fool and gave voice to my insanity.

"Then take my word, my Lord! I know him. Nicholas was my brother Edward's friend and a good, kind soul! Please, my Lord! Have mercy for those he seeks to aid." Though I kept my attention on the King, I could  _feel_  the eyes of Nicholas on me, studying me.

"Lily?" It was the only word of disbelief he could whisper before the King leapt from His throne. He took a handful of my hair near the back of my neck and I grasped at His hands as His hold on me lifted me up onto my knees.

"You dare intercede on behalf of this peasant? And you!" The King flung out His hand toward Nicholas, pointing an accusatory finger at him.

"Cast your eyes away from the Queen!" Nicholas fell to his face instantly.

"Please, my Lord, my husband!" I cried desperately but the King was unmoved by my pleas. Instead, He only grew angrier. Those assembled below had fallen silent in fear and had prostrated themselves already.

"Silence! You seek favor for him when I have decided not to bestow goods upon his doubtful word? You say you trust him when you should be trusting me! Go to him then! Take comfort from a weak vagrant and not your King!" He flung me forward and I fell beside Nicholas on the dais. I lay there panting in fear and watched as the King gestured to His guards with His hand raised upwards and the glowing orb held in it.

"Lock the doors. No one leaves here alive." It took a moment for me to comprehend His vicious condemnation. When I did, I struggled to raise myself upwards from beside Nicholas and I reached my hand toward the King where He loomed over us.

"No, my Lord, spare them!" The King turned His wrathful eyes upon me and they positively blazed.

"I said take comfort from your weak man! You have no need of me!" Turning His frightening eyes to Nicholas, He bellowed at him.

"Offer her your strength, peasant, for she will need all of it!" Nicholas rose to his knees and we stared at each other. Over his shoulder, I watched as the mass of people present began to panic and fight each other to reach the doors. A cacophony of fearful screams and shouts rose as the King's guards swarmed into the room and began to slay every man, woman and child. My own screams joined the terrible din as I witnessed such hideous carnage taking place before my very eyes. Nicholas fell upon me, taking me in his arms and forcibly turning me away from seeing it. I fought him in my terror, screaming and weeping as the sounds around us became a calamitous roar.

After what seemed like an eternity, the screaming dimmed and finally stopped. I had long since ceased struggling in Nicholas' arms and I slumped against him, defeated and feeling an otherworldly separation from reality blessedly cutting me off from my own mind. When one of the guards climbed the steps, leaving a path of bloody footprints behind him, the King let him approach Nicholas. Even wearing black, I could see the blood that spattered his clothing from the slaughter that had taken place. It ran down his sword, dark and sticky, and dripped from its wicked point as the guard lowered it towards the back of Nicholas' neck.

Finding a new strength in my body, fed by a fractured mind, I lurched upward over his shoulder and grasped the bloodied blade in my hands, redirecting it so its point dug into my throat. I felt the bite of its double edges cutting into the palm and fingers of my left hand but it seemed too distant to be real or of any consequence. My own blood ran down my arms and the guard could neither take the sword away nor kill Nicholas without harming me further. He stood, frozen in place as I screamed at him to kill me as well. Until Nicholas began to shout, I couldn't stop my own suicidal tirade.

"Lily! Stop it! Stop!" I clenched my fingers tighter on the blade until another swath of blood ran from me. The guard looked between me and the King with an expression of sheer panic on his face.

"Let go of it, Lily. Let him kill me." Nicholas spoke softly to me. His voice was calm and he held gentle pressure against my sides in a stabilizing fashion and so he could push me away if he felt it necessary. The King interrupted and spoke in a cold, emotionless fashion.

"No. This is her doing… isn't it, Lily?" I closed my eyes and pressed my neck harder against the tip of the sword. A tremble from the guard's nervous grip traveled along the blade to my bleeding and aching hand.

"Yes." My voice was hoarse and broken. The King stepped alongside the guard and the apple flared in His hand. My hands separated from the sword blade against my will and the guard immediately backed away, lowering his weapon to the floor. The King directed His next words at Nicholas.

"You will not die today, peasant." The King turned and pointed out toward the mass of dead people littering the bloodstained throne room.

"Look out there. Look at what disobedience and rebellion bring upon the innocent. Get to your feet!" Nicholas turned his face into my neck as he very slowly moved me away from him and barely whispered into my ear.

"I'll come for you; I'll raise an army!" I just shook my head in despair as he settled me back on my heels and stood. The King growled angrily at him for delaying.

"Your duty as a survivor of this… unfortunate uprising… is to spread the word of what happens when there is treachery within the walls of my court. Go. Have no fear. The Queen will live." Nicholas dared to look at me one last time and his eyes pleaded with me to believe his insane promise. He has no idea of how impossible it would be. He doesn't understand the power the King wields.

After Nicholas had picked his way between the scattered bodies and been allowed to pass unmolested out into the world, the King turned a disgusted eye on me where I knelt with my head bowed and my maimed hand resting in my lap. He left me there, alone in the throne room which had so recently been turned into a killing field. The smell of blood and death was horrendous. I pitched forward and vomited onto the stone floor. At last, when there was nothing left but heartache, I felt the familiar hands of my guard lifting me up. His silence was welcome and I remained so myself as he carried me up to my rooms.

The old woman was there and she tsked at my guard when he became reluctant to put me down. All he had to do was show her my hand and she immediately began animatedly speaking to him in their strange language. She gestured toward the bathing room so he carried me in there and set me down in the basin. He then climbed in as well and knelt behind me. I no longer cared about anything it seemed, until he took my left forearm in his hand and brought his right arm around me to extend the fingers of my injured hand outward. The old woman leaned over and took a long look at it before moving to the hand pump. My guard pushed me farther forward, extending my upturned palm beneath the end of it and the woman began to pump water.

I had never felt such pain in my life. My guard had been anticipating my reaction, for he tightened his grip on me and held me fast as I screamed and tried to pull my arm out from under the flow of water that ran red down the unplugged hole in the basin. Once the blood had been washed from me, the woman examined my hand again, holding the lantern close and prodding at the wound with her finger as I shook and attempted to quell my tears. She spoke a few more words to my guard and then left the room.

"Your wound is not as deep as it appeared, though it is still bad. Grandmother thinks you will not lose the use of your hand. She will treat it." We sat together in the basin and I alternately wept and fell into silence. When the old woman returned, she sewed the edges of my cut closed. I gritted my teeth and did my best to cooperate but it was good that my guard never released me, for by the end of it I was screaming again. A paste of plant matter and other things went onto my hand next and then it was bound tightly in cloth. Afterwards, my guard left us and the old woman stripped me down and bathed me. She left me as well once I had crawled into bed.

I don't think I slept much that night. I find it difficult to sleep at all but I don't even leave my bed some days. I haven't seen the King since that awful afternoon nearly ten days ago. Instead, I keep to my rooms and watch the birds of spring returning to the land to sing their songs of sorrow. Why do they come here? Why would anything come here?


	5. Chapter 5

**The 4 th of June in the 15th Year of the New Order Under our Lord and King** 

I still tremble when I think on that fateful day, of the carnage and screams and fear that made the air unbreatheable.  The smell of blood and death will come to me unbidden, making me retch and forego my meals for the day.  The only solace I find is when I beg my stoic guard to take me to the upper level promenade of the Palace where he showed me the retreating citizens so long ago.  There, where the wind always seems to blow, taking with it the perpetual stench of scorched sorrow that fills me, I’ll pace the walkways over and over.  I wonder if I may wear a furrow into the stone under my relentless feet.  

It was on one of my “walks” when I watched one of the King’s guards approach mine and speak to him.  The two men glanced at me several times and the newcomer’s gestures were animated and urgent.  He turned abruptly toward me and quickly crossed the distance to my side.  As he came closer, I recognized him.  Though somewhat stout in appearance, he had the look of a man of strength, built as solidly as a bull.  From time to time, when he had been in public attendance beside the King, he had borne a black handprint that covered his mouth and chin in a rather menacing fashion.  He didn’t wear such paint at that moment but his stature and face were recognizable. 

“Come with me,” he said, taking my left arm at the elbow.  I jumped at the physical contact but he held fast, tightening his grip on me until I winced.  It was obvious he had much disdain for me, for his mouth curled slightly at my reaction.  

“Unhand me!  I’ll go willingly with you; force is unnecessary.”  The guard pulled me closer with his painful grip. 

“You have proven yourself extremely defiant to the King.  What makes you think I can believe one word that comes from your deceitful mouth?”  His words were like a slap. Was that the general consensus of the guards surrounding the King?  I could think no further on his accusation, for my guard stepped between us.  He spoke a word in his language. 

“Teiowi:sonte.”  His tone sounded threatening, yet I wasn’t sure what he said was merely a word.  The way the man’s eyes moved from me to my guard’s, I wondered if it was his name.  My guard continued in English and extended his arm so it rested across my left side in a blocking stance.

 “I will take her.”  For a moment it seemed they would come to blows.  Though my guard was taller and thinner than the man who stood before him, he prevailed over the silent battle they carried on in the thick air between them.  With a final sneering look of disgust, the other guard released me and I rubbed the reddened finger marks he had left behind on my skin.  Only when the nearest door closed with a heavy, dull thud did my guard turn around and face me.  He took my forearm and lifted it upwards to inspect the marks on my skin. 

 “I’m fine.  They’ll fade.”  My guard moved his eyes from my elbow to my face.  I detected some concern in him though he gave no voice to it.  Over time, I have begun to understand the subtle movements of his eyebrows and the way the small wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and mouth change in understated ways, indicating his inner thoughts. 

 “It is a good sign that the King wants to see you.  I had considered approaching Him on your behalf.”

 “Why?  I’d rather not see Him ever again!” 

 “Do you know what would happen if He set you aside as Queen?”  I shook my head. 

“He might take another woman.  I heard Him mention it once, in passing.  But He would not let you walk free even if He did.  You would still be His but without the love of the people.”  At once, my heart soared at the prospect of being all but forgotten by the King.  But then it plummeted to the ground and down into the pits of Hell itself, for that would mean that another woman would become subject to the King’s heinous cruelty and insatiable appetite for satisfying His animal lust.   How could I rejoice at another’s misfortune?  Better for me to remain in His good favor than for another woman to come under His merciless power.

 “Good.  You understand the danger.  I knew you would.”  My guard turned his eyes down to my arm again and rubbed his thumb over the skin on top of my forearm before lowering his hand from me.  Why must he care so for me?  His kindness only proves to be more and more of a counterpoint to the King for every day that passes! 

 “Shall I bathe and make ready to see Him then?”  My guard silently shook his head and led me to the door in the side of the Palace the other guard had gone through.  I sighed and followed him with my hair undone, tangled from the wind and falling loosely down my back, my feet bare as usual and wearing only a simple, if finely made, sleeveless frock of soft, pale blue cotton that crossed over my chest and tied on the side with a long, dark blue sash. 

 We traversed the dark, cool halls of the Palace to the King’s chambers.  The guard from earlier passed us coming in the opposite direction, evidently having just informed the King of my imminent arrival.  He didn’t even look at me beyond a cursory flick of his dark eyes in my direction but his gaze lingered challengingly on my guard, who merely ignored him.  The guards outside the double doors to the King’s chambers stood silently as we approached.  My guard knocked and I squared my shoulders to face the King, no matter the result.  There was no sound from within so my guard reached for the handle and opened the doors.  The chambers appeared empty but he stepped inside and gestured for me to pass before him and enter the place.  I did and caught sight of the opened door to the King’s gardens and one of His hands resting on the stone railing just at the far edge of the visible patio beyond the door.   There was nothing else to do but go to Him so my guard left and shut the door. 

 The King did not turn to face me though I knew He was aware of my presence where I came to a stop several paces from His location.  He spoke out into the distance ahead of Him.

 “Have you had adequate time to think upon your rebellion?  On what it has cost both of us?  I should have had you executed for your actions.  Instead I have ached for the lack of you by my side. I have not stopped loving you… despite the trouble you insist on bringing me.”  He remained staring out at the distant tree line and I could think of nothing to say in response.  The muscles in His shoulders twitched and the side of His jaw that I could see clenched repetitively.

 “My Lord…”  I faltered.  There was nothing I could say.  No false expressions of returned love or even the truth of my hatred would satisfy the King.  Instead I clasped my fingers until they became bloodlessly pale and waited.  Even with the sun shining on the earth, I felt cold in the shadow of the Palace and the sinister presence of the King.

 He held out His hand, reaching it back toward me without looking away from the treeline.

 “Come here, Lily.”  I hesitated and the King knew it.  He turned His body and regarded me as I attempted to make up for lost time by walking rapidly toward Him.  When I was within His reach, He abruptly grabbed me and spun me so my back was against the stone railing and my body arched out over it.  He must have touched the Apple, for my limbs became dead to my powers.  Perhaps He would become so angry he would fling me to my death and end my misery.  If only I should be so lucky…

 “You will stop this!  At every opportunity you defy me, even in the smallest ways.  You force my hand and undermine me… and I know the thoughts that fuel your fight.  I hear your hateful words whispering in my head whenever I touch you.  Yes.  This very moment you wish for me to let you fall from here… don’t you?”   I shook my head, more in disbelief than denial.  How could He know my mind?

 “You know why, my lovely, insolent queen, even if I can only get the sense of them when they are tied to your strongest emotions.”  He took my hand and moved it to the Apple at His waist and I did indeed know how.  My heart raced in fear.  What can that thing _not_ do?  The King answered my wondering.

 “It cannot change hearts… it cannot _make_ you love me.  I have thought about you overmuch these past weeks and I have decided that I will no longer attempt to hope for any loving reciprocation from you. But you are still my wife.  You will attend Petitions beside me.  You will dine with me.  You will share my bed and not fight me.  If I must, I will hold you under the power of the Apple in perpetuity.”  As He spoke I felt myself wanting to crumble to pieces.   If I had thought my situation hopeless before it was even more so now. 

 “Think of me what you will:  Monster, Evil, Insane.  You would not be the first to think so. It does not change my decision.” I felt tears leaking from my eyes as He spoke.  I was still held by the Apple’s power so there was nothing I could do to stop them and they dropped from my face onto the front of my dress.  I choked out the only thing I could.

 “So I’m to be nothing more than your slave and prisoner, then?”  The King’s face furrowed with rage at my words.

 “Do not attempt to further bait my anger, woman!  You are my Queen but you have created your own prison with your foolhardy ways!  You could save yourself much distress if you simply accept what I offer you.  Instead, you continually spurn it.”  He spun, taking me with Him, and released my body to my own will.  I stumbled along, towed by His grip on my arm until we entered His bedchamber.  I knew what He wanted; He was angry with me and that always stoked the fires of His desire.  I numbly stood as He pointed to the enormous bed.  After only a moment, I obeyed His silent order, untying the sash at my waist and dropping the dress to the floor before climbing naked onto the bed. I lay on my back with my fists clenched by my sides and stared at the ceiling in silence.  The King undressed as well but did not join me or even approach the bed.  Instead He held the Apple in His palm and merely watched me.  The Apple glowed subtly, some of its brilliance stolen by the bright light of day that filled the room.  Despite its diminished appearance I knew the power of its capabilities, yet that didn’t prepare me for what was to come. 

 My skin began to feel as if it were being caressed by some invisible spirit force.  Every nerve on its surface told me I was being touched yet there was nothing there.  Waves of arousal grew steadily in me against my will and my most sensitive places became inflamed with sexual stimulation yet I resisted reacting to it, for the first time my breath hitched, I saw evidence of the King’s sick satisfaction as a result.  When I maintained composure, He used the Apple to redouble His labors.  Every deep nerve in me was strummed to unbearable levels.  I knew the effort of resisting was beginning to tell and at last I could no longer fight it.  My breath came from me in gasps and I bent my knees up.  As my gasps turned into cries, I couldn’t keep my body still at all and the build up was becoming insupportable.  I needed a release and I finally attempted to reach to myself to aid in it.  The King did not permit me.  My hands moved away and remained locked in place beside my hips as I twisted in distress.  The sounds that escaped me grew louder and more desperate as the sensations intensified even further.  

I wept and begged Him to stop, begged Him to finish it but He wasn’t through.  I was screaming in the most torturous arousal by the time He had had his fill of watching my suffering.  The ghostly sensations ended all at once and I was left writhing on the bed, unsatisfied and in an agony of torment.  The soles of my feet burned from rubbing them on the blankets and I began to weep once more from the state of utter unrest I had been left in.  Only then did the King crawl up onto the bed and settle Himself between my knees.  He lifted my hands up over my head to the pillows I lay against and began to kiss me.  Leaving my hands where He knew they would stay, He reached down to me and used His fingers to resume what He’d begun with the Apple.  I was so tortured with desperate need that I kissed Him in return and, sickened, welcomed His touch, moving my body in a most lascivious manner so as to facilitate His actions.  He even released my hands from the Apple’s restraints and I clung to His shoulders, mindless and frantic for release as He took me at last.  Through it all, He whispered to me between His kisses, encouraging me, asking why I couldn’t hunger for Him in such a way without being driven to it. 

 The King made me experience a freakish pleasure that was wholly unnatural.  It gripped my body and I’m certain that, if asked in those seemingly endless moments, I would have promised, begged, cried, and admitted anything just to make it both last forever and cease entirely.  Only once I’d recovered somewhat did I comprehend all of what He’d been saying to me and I used my little remaining strength to attempt pushing away from Him to escape His presence.  He dragged me back and held me as I squirmed weakly in His embrace.  Eventually I quieted, though I turned my face from His kisses and wept quietly in utter shame.

 My fate is now sealed.  I’m no longer really His Queen.  Perhaps in name or title as He says, yes, but truly I’m His plaything, His pet and clearly His obsession.

 

  **The 13 th of June in the 15th Year of the New Order under our Lord and King** 

I’ve returned to the King’s side in the throne room.  Nothing has changed.  Summer is a somewhat less deadly time for the people of New Kanatahseton because there are more edible things growing and less chance of freezing to death or starving but that doesn’t mean there isn’t still need.  The people lack adequate shelter, clothing and tools.  With so few building materials at hand due to no outside trade, any loss of skilled tradesmen is a devastating blow to the community.  There were many losses this past winter.  

I recognized a woman today but I hardened my heart to her plight.  I couldn’t watch as she begged for the materials needed for a spinning wheel.  Though she was granted what she wished for I could not honestly look into her eyes and rejoice at the King’s mercy.  My heart had long ago grown bitter inside me.  

The King has taken to idly stroking the skin of my shoulder during petitions or running His fingers down the length of my hair, especially if it’s been plaited into braids.  Perhaps He wishes all to know that I have been reduced to nothing more than a treasured keepsake He enjoys showing off.  He publicly tortures me by making use of His Apple to cause me much duress during the petitions of the people.  Much like when He had imprisoned me upon His bed and created invisible sensations upon my flesh, He now does something similar to me when I sit beside His throne.  It’s nothing like the intensity of the first time in private, but all the same, I feel the creep of wandering hands on my skin, His hands, and the unnatural flush of inner arousal that is created by that _thing_ He wields.  He’ll bring me to near delirium and I know my rapid breathing and the heated blush upon my face does not go unnoticed.  I must appear as some rabid tart, unable to constrain my night time lusts to the privacy of the bedchamber.  I’m a spectacle!  And it’s all for the King’s enjoyment, for He becomes particularly generous with granting petitions while I’m in such a state. 

 Word has evidently spread and has started to create the unfortunate consequence of making me quite studiously observed during Petitions.  It makes me wish to cut myself free of my putrid, weak flesh that is incapable of resisting the power of the King’s Apple and His sick will.  Often, the King doesn’t even give me the luxury of any satisfaction as a result of so much anguish and I’m left in a near hysterical state of agitation, which I must endure.  At times I’ve been reduced to begging the King to relieve me of it as soon as we are out of the public eye, which obviously brings Him much satisfaction when I so eagerly wish for His touch and His body.  When He finally acquiesces, either immediately or after making me wait, it is both a mercy and yet another torment.

 In view of the foregoing, I cannot bear to converse with Him and only when He asks me a direct question do I ever speak.  In this way our meals have become interrogations, for I refuse to volunteer any conversation.  I have even lost the desire to speak with my guard in any format, not even to bluster over the galling ways of the King as I once did.  I spend my days and nights in silence as much as possible.  Sometimes even the sound of my own breathing or the rustle of the sheets or my clothing is painful to my ears and the feeling of the blood moving within my veins is too much to bear.

 I’ll stay in my bath water until it turns cold and only at the impatient cajoling of the old woman or the strength of my guard lifting me do I stir from its depths, feeling just as filthy as I had before I got in.  I’m unable to clean the stench of the King from my skin.  It prevails day and night, filling my nose with His noxious odor and I fear I’ll slowly suffocate from its effects. 

 

**The 31 st of July in the 15th Year of the New Order Under our Lord and King**

 I’ve seen no point in writing of late.  Nothing changes so I’ve retreated into the echoing solitude of my mind and very little stirs my heart from its dormancy.  Sometimes, when the last rays of light permeate the glass of my room and I watch the tiny sparrows battling the hawks that seek always to steal their young, I want to reach my hand through the impenetrable panes and call to them.  I want to take them to my bosom and whisper that it’s alright to give up… that it’s alright to fail… for even if one battle is won, there are countless others that will beat down upon them on its heels.  There will always be another hawk, another predator, another monster seeking to consume and devour life.  If it isn’t the King, it’s the plight of the people, if not that, it’s the stone cage I live inside.  Round and round I could go, fighting, and for what?  No one could prevail under such an onslaught.  So He wins and the people continue to languish.  The King’s empty assurances of a better future are so much murky, lowland wind that passes through the air like the odor of decay, sweetly nauseating and the result of which is only death.

 

**The 7 th of October in the 15th Year of the New Order Under our Lord and King**

 I haven’t had cause to write in some time but the events of this day are so frightening I cannot keep quill from paper. 

 Nicholas came back.  He might have lost his mind from starvation or he’s simply the most stubborn, foolish man to ever live.  Perhaps he was counting on the King’s habits of granting even ridiculous requests to the people who are lucky enough to make petitions when I’m under the wicked spell of the Apple.  

I had been clenching my teeth in my usual way to contain my distress and when I opened my eyes he was climbing the stairs to the upper dais.  I nearly cried out in alarm but instead I voiced my shock through a gasp that drew the King’s attention to me as Nicholas fell to his knees in Petition.  A truly evil smile spread over the King’s features and at the same moment a wave of sensation pushed me into a state of absolutely excruciating pleasure that caused me to fall forward with a cry.  I only just caught myself by grabbing hold of the throne and clinging to it.  The King softly stroked my cheek and followed my hairline with His fingers, petting me like some domesticated animal that pleased Him as I trembled from the after effects.  Nicholas’ voice came to me from far away, a distant sound nearly lost in the tumult of my mind. 

“My Lord, I come to you with the only request I will ever again make of you, yet it is of the utmost importance.” 

“Speak.  Choose your words wisely and hope I do not kill you before you are through.” 

“I ask only for you to release Lily.  Let her go.  No human should be kept as property or treated as…”  Before he could finish the King leapt to His feet and hauled me around to the front of the throne to stand in front of Him.  His hold trapped my arms to my sides and He pulled my back up against His chest.  

“Why do you plead so heartily for her release?  Do you wish to have her for yourself?” 

The King’s body moved strangely yet I instantly understood when the cold edge of a knife was pressed to my throat.  I raised my hands to His forearm and held tight to His burning skin, unable to reach the knife at my throat from my restrained position.  My ears were ringing and I was still caught in a haze of contrived arousal strong enough to overpower even the fear of imminent death for Nicholas’ or my part.  Again, his voice drifted to my ears even as I cried out from an unexpected barrage of sensations crawling over me.

 “No!  Please!  My King!  I wish only for her freedom!” 

“Do not deny that you desire her!  I know it for truth yet you prevaricate under the guise of justice.”  The King pushed me down until I was kneeling before Nicholas.  He crouched over me as He kept the knife pressed to the skin of my neck.  Only His other hand on my shoulder kept me from falling down completely as He continued, looming dangerously above us. 

“I’d rather kill her here than let you think you could _ever_ have her!”  Nicholas’ shouts of protest to the King were fading away from me as I sank deeper under the spell of the Apple, though I fought to listen.

 “Spare her!  Let my death be payment enough for my folly.  Please!  _Please!_ ”  I remember little else for a time, for the King caused me to scream in ecstasy. His voice was soft as I fell back against His legs when He at last ceased His torment of my body.  By then the knife was no longer against my skin and only the stroke of the King’s fingers where it used to be remained. 

“You like what you see.  She is beautiful, is she not?  Look how she moves when I will it.  Her pleasure is all mine to give her; not yours.”  Nicholas could only shake his head and I watched through my gasping breaths as he looked upon me with the deepest horror. 

 “Take him to the prisons.  I will deal with him later.”  As soon as Nicholas was hauled away, still begging for the King’s mercy on my behalf, the King ended petitions.  He took me all the way to my rooms Himself, keeping His hand closed tightly upon my arm the entire time.  In my rooms, He pushed me onto the bed and stood over me.  His face was nearly devoid of expression but rage filled His voice. 

“What do you know of that man?  What is he to you?” 

“He’s nothing to me, my Lord Husband.  He was just a friend from my childhood. I don’t know him any longer.”  

“Then why does he persist in chasing after you?” 

“I don’t know, my Lord!” The King didn’t respond.  He left me then, letting the heavy door of my rooms close loudly behind Him.  I could do nothing but relieve myself of the need He had created and so mercilessly left me with.  Only when it was done did I allow the ever-present loathing for myself to fill up and overflow my heart.  I cannot know what horrors He will unleash upon poor Nicholas.  Better for him to have died of starvation than to endure what will surely be a fate worse than any death.

 

**The 8 th of October in the 15th Year of the New Order Under our Lord and King** 

The King didn’t hold back His hand in punishing Nicholas and He chose to include me in the dealing of it.  

I was wary when I woke to the King’s voice outside my chambers.  I leapt from the bed and quickly began to neaten my appearance lest I rouse His ire unnecessarily.  I bowed my head when He at last opened the door and entered.  Sparing me only a brief glance, He sat on my bed, leaning back against the headboard and lifting one leg up onto the mattress and leaving one foot on the floor.  He gestured to me and then to the space in front of Him on the mattress. 

“Come to me and sit here.”  I obeyed Him immediately.  He began to converse with me in a most unusual manner.  Well, unusual for Him, that is, for He is in no way a normal man. 

“You are looking well this morning.  Did you sleep well?”  I nodded, unsure of the source of His strange congeniality.  

“That pleases me.” His hands lightly stroked my arms and He combed His fingers through my hair, moving it all over the front of my right shoulder in a show of unusual, soft affection.  He guided me to lean back against His chest and kissed the left side of my face.  

“It occurred to me that perhaps I was too harsh on you last evening.  How were you to know that fool would return?  You did not know, did you?”  I shook my head. 

“No, my Lord Husband.”  The King kissed me again for my answer and His hands wandered over me. 

“As I thought.  Because of how frightened he made you, I have arranged for you to witness what happens to those who threaten the safety of my wife.”  The King turned His head towards the door and raised His voice. 

“Bring him!”  The door opened and Nicholas was dragged into my chambers by two of the King’s guards.  He was shirtless and already bore bruises and marks from mistreatment.  I started forward but the King’s hands tightened on my arms and He pulled me back against Him.  I knew immediately that if I resisted in the least, it would only go worse for Nicholas, whatever the King had planned. 

“There is no need to fear, my love, no need to fear.”  He whispered frighteningly in my ear as I did indeed tremble in fear, not for myself, but for my childhood friend.    

The King made a sweeping gesture with His left hand and without a moment’s hesitation, the two guards began to beat Nicholas.  I’ll never forget the noises their fists and feet made on Nicholas’ body, nor the sounds of pain and agony that came from him.  Even when he could no longer get up, they beat him until the King raised His hand.  Nicholas was still conscious, though his blood pooled on the floor beneath his face and his breaths were loud and rasping.  I wept openly at his suffering and the King spoke softly to me while stroking slowly across my neck with His fingers in a subtly threatening way. 

“Do you see my love, my Queen, my _wife_ , what befalls those who seek to take you from me?”  I nodded shakily and He directed His next words to Nicholas. 

“And you!  This woman is _mine_.  I should kill you for even looking upon her beauty.  But I want you to see her.  Look at her now.”  Nicholas moved his head with a groan so he could more fully see me.  The King guided me to stand up from the bed.  It was then that the situation, which was already a nightmare, became even worse.  The King stood behind me and reached around to the laces of my shift.  He quickly untied them and pulled them loose.  As the King began to take my shift down from my shoulders, Nicholas, bless his heart, closed his eyes and lowered his face to the floor for the sake of my decency.  But the King wanted nothing of the kind.  

“Look upon her!  Do it!”  Nicholas opened his eyes as much as he could despite them beginning to swell up from his bruises and fixed his pale, apologetic gaze upon my face as the King pushed my shift to the floor and I was left standing naked before the sight of the three men with us.  Lest he attempt to look away again, one of the guards took a handful of Nicholas’ hair and wrenched his head upward.  He continued to bleed copiously from his broken nose and damaged lips.  The blood mingled with his saliva and ran down his chin to drip onto the floor beneath his face. 

Unconcerned for any propriety, the King boldly fondled my breasts and slid His hands over me, all the while speaking to Nicholas. 

“See how smooth her skin is?  How perfectly shaped she is?  All of her is mine to do with as I please.”  Then the King pressed His hands to my hips and directed me to my knees and down further onto my hands.  My face was only a pace from Nicholas where he lay and to my utmost shame, the King took me right there in front of our audience.  To their credit, the guards made no indication that they had any interest in what was taking place.  But Nicholas… his eyes never left mine, even while I wept in shame as the King forced a powerful climax upon me with His toy that made me cry out loudly.  When He was finished, I curled in upon myself as tightly as I was able and the guards dragged Nicholas out of the room, leaving a long smear of dark blood across the stone floor.  

The King knelt in front of me and lifted my face in His hands almost lovingly.  His luminescent blue eyes had a hooded darkness to them as He looked deeply into mine and smoothed my tears from my cheeks.  

“Shh.  You were almost perfect, Lily.  My perfect little flower.  Except for your tears, I nearly believed you.”  He rose and left me there, humiliated and trembling with revulsion and fear filling me to overflowing.  I crawled through the blood marking the floor and stumbled to my bathing basin, knowing even as I pumped the water myself that I would once again bathe in futility, for the filth of the King’s absolute corruption and incurable sickness would forever stain my skin.  I performed my ablutions anyway, wondering if poor Nicholas would mercifully not survive his terrible beating yet knowing in my heart that the King’s intentions would be to keep him alive and suffering for as long as possible.  


	6. Chapter 6

**The 12 th of January in the 16th Year of the New Order Under our Lord and King** 

Again some time has gone by since I last have written.  I used to think of Nicholas many times during the days and months that have passed since his brutal beating in my chambers.  Yet time and routine has slowly been taking thoughts of him away and it is because of that that I now write.  I can’t forget him!  How dare I when he risked everything to try to save me?  Certainly he was the first and the last to attempt such folly.  

Perhaps he’s dead.  Perhaps he died long ago yet I suppose I’ll never know.  The King never speaks of him and neither do I, for to do so would be to risk rousing His anger against me, and if Nicholas is impossibly still alive, against him as well.  

The days pass, each day like the last…  On the days that the King hears Petitions, I am always there by His side.  The days He travels outside the Palace, I wander my chambers or walk along the walls of the palace, always shadowed by my guard, always watched by the others, always, always…  

I’ve learned to school my thoughts, never letting a stray thought for Nicholas or hatred for the King come to my mind when I am near Him and His evil powers.  Instead I think on the plight of the people.  When I can’t do that, I force myself to think of trivial matters: the color of the dress I’m wearing, the sound of the birds outside, the smell of the air I breathe or the food we eat.  Only when I am alone do I allow my mind to wander where it will.  Of late, it hasn’t been wandering to the cells of the Palace where, if he lives, Nicholas surely languishes.  I can’t forget him.  I can’t forget him.  I must never forget him! 

My life is a monotony of routine.  I hate it yet there is a kind of comfort in it.  I’m frightened to admit that very thing, for it is what the King wants of me.  He wants me to find comfort here, with Him, within His prison walls.  To do so would be to give up my life to Him completely and to sacrifice the one thing He doesn’t appear to want to control: my mind.  He does as He pleases with my body, bids me do His will and I obey, yet even if He can listen to my very thoughts, He lets me have them, despite the anger they invoke.  

I find that the King looks upon me strangely from time to time.  Perhaps my silence has begun to irk Him, for He prods me to speak more often.  My mundane thoughts must bore Him when He deigns to use His wicked Apple to pry into my mind.  I take a modicum of joy at even that tiny victory.  

 

 **The 21 st of January in the 16th Year of the New Order Under our Lord and King**

I saw him!  Nicholas is alive!  I was almost convinced that I was seeing an apparition but he looked right at me.  He didn’t stop his laboring in the snow with the other prisoners, in fact, he seemed to pick up the pace of his shoveling after I met his eyes for that moment.  I stood on the wall outside the Palace far above where he worked, wrapped in a heavy fur.  I’d needed a breath of air and so convinced my guard to take me outside.  We had begun speaking as we had before not terribly long ago and I do believe it came as a relief to my guard who so carefully looks after my well being.  

However, he was not relieved when I happily expressed my observation of Nicholas, for he quickly led me away from the walls and inside, holding onto my arm and gesturing with his hand for me to be silent.  Once we were within the confines of my chambers, he took me by my arms and his eyes bored deeply into mine.  I’d only rarely seen such worry, and dare I say anger, in his expression. 

“Do not speak of what you were never meant to see!”

 “What do you mean?  Why am I never meant to see the prisoners?  I always see them working around the Palace!  Or is it Nicho-” 

“Quiet!  I said never to speak of it!”  His tone allowed for no argument and I felt chastised like a recalcitrant child as he continued.  

“It is for your safety… and his.  Do not speak of it.  He is just another laborer, not who you thought.”  He spoke softly enough that I almost couldn’t hear him yet his hands gripped my arms so tightly it was almost painful, even with the thickness of the fur covering them. 

“But he _was_ who I thought…”  I insisted quietly and my guard bent down, bringing his face close to mine.  I could observe his features closely and his eyes were so dark that his pupils almost blended with his irises and I cut off my words under his intense scrutiny.

 “No!  He was not!”  I bowed my head at his firm response and took a deep breath. 

“As you say.  I must have… been mistaken.”  I heaved a second sigh and closed my eyes for a moment to hold back my pain.  My guard returned to his normal posture, released my arms at last and gently took my face in his hands to tip it upwards.  Sadness marked his features, as well as some relief and an equal measure of something I might even call affection.  His thumbs stroked the sides of my hairline and I could no longer hold back my sadness at being forced to let go of the only bit of light I’d managed to discover in this hideous prison.  My lips trembled and my guard’s eyebrows moved together.  He shook his head at me and stepped close, pulling me forward until my face was pressed into his chest.  I clung to his uniform and began to weep.  I wept for Nicholas, forced to live out his days working as a slave to the King.  The irony of it bit deep, for he once sought freedom for me and he now joins me in being a prisoner.  I also wept for my guard; I was unable to bear that the one person I felt I could trust was still loyal to the King, first and foremost.  Despite his fatherly love for me, I was still a slave under the watchful eye of another slave and his care for me could never surpass his devotion to the King. 

 Much of the pain I had been holding inside over the past year escaped from me in those moments.  Before I had completely calmed down, my guard extracted himself from my grasp.  I sought to retain my grip on him in a desperate quest for even the minutest shred of comfort but he forcibly uncurled my fingers from his sleeve, gently and without pause.  His final words to me before turning and leaving were spoken softly and carried an intensity I had never heard from him before. 

“You must be stronger than this, Lily.”  The heavy door closed quietly behind him and the sound of the key grating in the lock echoed in my ears. 

**The 8 th of February in the 16th year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

 The King was gone for a long time.  A week, perhaps, maybe more.  It was a relatively peaceful time for me, aside from the confrontation I’d had with my guard.  He became reluctant to allow me out of doors, presumably to keep me from seeing the prisoners, so I had taken to sitting in my quiet room and burying myself in one of the many books in the King’s collection.  Sometimes my eyes would roam over the pages repeatedly like some automaton, and not a single word of it would penetrate my mind.  It was merely a way to pass the time of my lonely existence.  

I was in my chambers reading by the window when the King returned.  I had no warning of His entrance and so I was wholly unprepared for Him when the grating sound of the door latch lifting caused me to turn my head from my book to see who was entering.  I jumped to my feet as He strode toward me.  He was filthy and had clearly had a confrontation with an animal or some other wild thing, for He had scratches on the skin of His face, neck, chest and arms. Some of them were so deep they still wept blood and looked frighteningly as if they were made by a human.  His eyes were what caught me the most though.  They blazed brighter than I could ever remember and were bloodshot and crazed.  He came straight for me and grabbed me into His arms.  I resisted His embrace for the first time in many months, for He stank profusely of the filth that covered Him and whatever He had recently consumed.  His breath was astringent and bitter and the taste of Him was just as bad when He roughly pressed me against the wall and kissed me.  It invoked thoughts of alcohol but I knew He was not an imbiber of such spirits.  His flesh felt like fire on my skin and His lust seemed uncontrollable.  At last I managed to turn my face from His and speak. 

“Please, my Lord husband!  Let me bathe you and treat your wounds first and then you can take your pleasure.” He drew back to regard me with His luminescent eyes, breathing heavily.  I wanted to cringe away from His awful stench but I held His gaze instead.  He abruptly stepped away and I quickly led Him into my bathing chamber.  He stood next to the basin as I pumped the steaming water into it with the hand pump.  Strangely docile and calm, it was as if His mind had suddenly left Him. When the basin was full He continued to stare through me blankly as I removed His filthy clothing and guided Him to step into the basin.  He complied without argument or a word, not even wincing as the hot water closed over the many deep scratches on His body.  More cuts and bruises had been revealed as I had disrobed Him and I began to wonder if He had fallen from a great height into a ravine or been dosed with a sedative and beaten.  Perhaps both scenarios had happened, for it would explain His injuries and the strangeness of His breath.  

I pondered these things and others as I used the only soap I had at hand, one scented with rose petals and lily of the valley, to wash away the grime, dried blood, dust and gunpowder from Him.  He followed my quietly spoken commands to dunk His head, sit forward, kneel or raise His arms when I bade Him to and remained eerily silent through it all. I emptied the basin when the water grew too filthy to be of any effectiveness and washed His hair as the water drained away.   I then proceeded to rinse Him with the pitcher repeatedly until He was clean.  He remained kneeling in the basin as I took my needle and thread and stitched closed the deeper wounds on his body that persistently bled.  

At last I stood beside Him and waited for Him to give any indication that He was aware of my presence.  For the first time I felt a sort of pity grow in my heart for Him, for His senses seemed to have fled from Him completely, leaving behind only a broken shell of a man.  I left the bathing room and returned with the remainder of the peach tea I had been drinking earlier, sweetened with honey and long since turned as cold as the stone the Palace was constructed of.  I raised the cup to His lips and held it for Him but He didn’t drink until I bade Him.  After He had swallowed it, He inhaled deeply and much of the emptiness that had filled His eyes cleared away.  He looked at my hand holding the cup near Him and followed my arm up to my face.  He seemed bewildered and disoriented and He cast His eyes around the room and then down at Himself where He knelt in the basin.  He touched the many wounds on His body with uncertainty and lingered on the stitched places before returning His gaze to me.  I feared His wrath and aggression would cause Him to seize me but He merely spoke softly to me.  

“How did I come to be in your chambers?” 

“I don’t know, my Lord.  You’re injured and… confused.  You must rest now.” 

“I sought the Red Willow tree.  I see it in my dreams at night and I was close…  I must find it!  The Lynx calls to me and I must take on its powers.”  I raised my hand to my face and covered my mouth at His crazed words.  Perhaps He had been poisoned.  Surely He had lost His mind.  He continued in the same soft voice. 

“It is the fourth strength that I need.  The Wolf, Eagle and Bear are nothing without the Lynx.”  He leaned forward and gestured in a strange way, as if beckoning to something in the far corner of the room.  He repeated the gesture and His face grew pained.  He then clutched at the sides of His head, gripping His wet hair in His fists, and made an anguished sound before looking up at me with panic on His face. 

“You see?  You see how my powers are failing?  You must see it!”  Fear filled my belly with a writhing ache and I clutched at my sides in an effort to not raise my hands up in front of me and reveal the true nature of my inner turmoil.  I only shook my head as I responded. 

“I see nothing…”  The King tightened His grip on His hair and curled His body downward.  He muttered hoarsely in His language and then began to shiver and make guttural noises.  I quickly draped a towel over Him and backed away.  His filthy clothes came underfoot so I pushed them aside and the heavy orb he carries with Him rolled out from under them and clinked against the basin.  The King lifted His head from His hands and observed the orb.  He turned to face me, His body slightly hunched where He crouched.  His turquoise eyes widened and I feared I had roused His wrath for touching the orb until He spoke again. 

“Why do you pursue me, Spirit?  I did your will to my detriment years ago, now let me do my own to my benefit!”  I didn’t know what to say, for He clearly wasn’t seeing me, so I fled the room.  

Once out of sight, I stumbled against my bed and then to the door of my room.  I clutched at my stomach and felt both fear and nausea building in me.  The King sees things?  He believes He can summon the power of animals?  His insanity made me ill yet my blood ran cold within my body when the King began to scream.  I gripped my dress and cowered next to the door when it burst open to admit my guard.  He glanced at me, in my pale blue dress darkened with the King’s washing water and some of the dirt and blood that had covered His body, and then ran toward the bathing room as the King’s screams became louder and more anguished.  He was in the room for but a moment before he appeared to be flung backwards onto the floor.  Fighting back my terror, I went to him and helped him sit up.  From where I crouched over him, I could see into the bathing room and the King was arched backwards over the edge of the basin with the brightly glowing orb clasped in His rigid right hand and held to His chest as His left hand clawed the skin of His right forearm, leaving bloody trails in its wake.  Bright turquoise light drifted down to the floor like an unholy mist from His wide open eyes and His screams went on and on.  He continued to tear bleeding furrows all over His body until at last He fell unconscious, the orb went dark and the King lay slumped in the basin with rivulets of red streaming from His skin and running down the drain. 

Neither one of us approached the King.  My guard rubbed his elbow and then sadly shook his head. 

“That thing gives Him more strength each time He uses a great deal of its power.” 

“It’s killing Him!  He’s lost His mind!” 

“Perhaps.  Perhaps not.  But it changes Him.  We will have to see what it has wrought this time.”  My guard’s calm acceptance of what just transpired brought chills to my body.  

“Why did He come to me like that?  He was like a wild creature!”

“Each time the King uses the Apple in that way, He consumes a drink our people use to see the skyworld.  Somehow the two activities together produce this as a result, though I have never seen it this bad before.”  

“Can’t we stop Him?” 

“You know no one can survive defying His will.  You are the only exception to that I have ever seen.”  My guard’s words made me want to vomit.  I looked over at the King and stared at His lifeless form.  I closed my eyes and shook my head at the mess.  

“Please take Him from my rooms.  I can’t bear to look at Him and I don’t want to be nearby when He wakes.”  My guard got to his feet and nodded quietly before leaving my chambers to summon more guards.  While he was gone, I tiptoed into the bathing room to regard the King.  Pity moved me to stitch up the new, ragged wounds that had gone beyond mere superficial scratches and to cover the King’s nakedness with a sheet. By the time I finished my gruesome task, the guards had returned and they lifted the King to bear Him out of my rooms.  On his way by me, my guard paused and waited until the others had gone ahead.  

“He will want you near once He wakes.  We both know this.  If you refuse He will come for you and He will be angry.  Please do not risk that.  You are too precious to this Kingdom for the people to lose you to His blind rage.”  I considered his words and then sighed as I accepted them.  

“Am I truly the only one who tempers Him?” 

“More than you know.  And even then, it may not qualify as tempering.  Do not take the risky path.  We must all tread carefully until we know what changes have been wrought in the King.”  With that, my guard left me.  One of the serving men arrived shortly after to clean up the bathing room and tidy my bedroom.  I learned long ago not to attempt engaging him in conversation so I affected an indifferent air and kept my eyes firmly on my book.  He bore no reaction to the bloodied basin, nor did he look at me beyond what was absolutely necessary.  It was a relief when he left me.  

I ate only a small dinner in my rooms tonight.  I wonder how long it will be before I must face my mad King and husband to discover if He is any longer a only a deranged, dangerous man or if He has become something much worse. 


	7. Chapter 7

**The 13 th of February in the 16th Year of the New Order Under our Lord and King**

 

The King has been sleeping for the better part of four days, attended to by several servants periodically.  Taking my guard’s advice, as unappealing as it is, I spend most of the daytime hours sitting in a large, cushioned chair in His chambers waiting for Him to wake.  I read bits and pieces of a variety of books from His collection.  None of them really interest me, for my mind is too tumultuous to settle on one for more than a moment.  For long stretches at a time we’re alone in His chambers and I am kept company by the soft, steady breathing of the King.  He will twitch and move from time to time, seemingly about to rouse, and then fall back into the deeper realm of sleep. It’s the most human I’ve ever seen Him.  Sometimes I’ll stand beside the bed and look at Him, wishing with all my strength that He’ll open His eyes and they’ll be the amber color He said they once were instead of bright turquoise and frightening.  I doubt anything will ever cure Him of the sickness of mind and body brought on by that Apple.

 

 Two of His deepest scratches became inflamed and festered early on.  The old woman tended to them quickly and seemed to look with approval upon my constant presence.  Perhaps she believes it is out of love or affection.  Nay.  It is self-preservation alone that keeps me rooted to His chambers. The only love or affection I ever feel comes from my guard.  He has become like a quiet uncle to me, a father figure, a friend.  My only friend, in truth. 

 

One would think my nights are peaceful but they are not.  I sleep alone in my chambers but I fear for when the King will wake, for my guard’s words ring in my skull day and night.  If the King is to become some stranger monster, more so than the one He is already for use of His Apple and His Tea…  I am a doomed soul indeed. 

 

One might also think that I should take the King’s life and free everyone from His reign.  There are all His weapons arrayed throughout His room and yet I dare not touch them for fear of the terrible pain I had experienced the last time I’d tried.  If I ever feel I’m capable of murder then I am farther gone than I ever imagined.  I could never do such a thing, no matter what He does to me.  I may have killed my beautiful goat, my sweetest little Thistle, but I cannot kill a man.  Lord Almighty, has it truly been more than a year since I was harmed so painfully by the King’s weapons, enchanted by His Apple in such a cruel way?  To look back upon the pages of misery I have recorded with my own hand in this journal brings me to such weeping that I cannot continue. 

 

My door is still locked and the windows prevent me from escaping.  There is always a guard outside on the King’s balcony pacing, pacing, watching, watching.  To be a bird, to be free!  Yet the only freedom I can ever achieve is to die.  Perhaps this will come to pass if the King is so poisoned by His actions that He takes my life from me in blind rage.  I will not resist it.

 

 

**The 16 th of February in the 16th Year of the New Order Under our Lord and King**

 

The King woke from His slumbers yesterday.  I was there when it came to pass.  I had a book in my lap and I had been watching the balcony guard through the windows.  The sun was shining brightly yet I was wrapped in a blanket to stay warm.  Winter has been cruel this year.  Many will die, certainly….  I try not to think on their suffering, for they are simply told the King is not taking petitions… they suffer whether the King sleeps or wakes and I can do nothing for them. 

 

“Lily…”

 

I leapt from my chair when I heard my name hoarsely spoken from the King.  The book I had been holding slipped from my grasp to fall loudly onto the floor and I clutched the blanket to my chest.  I spoke when I had gathered my wits back to me once again.

 

“My Lord?”  The King’s eyes followed me as I approached the bed cautiously.  Much to my alarm, His pupils had changed.  No longer round, they were diamond shaped, similar to a cat’s.   When I got close to Him, I knelt down beside the bed and reached over to touch His face just below His right eye.  He must have seen the disbelief on my face, for His brows came together and He looked at me with fear inspiring intensity with His new eyes.

 

“Your eyes….”  I trailed off, unable to continue.  The King nodded.

 

“I see more clearly now.  The Lynx found me after all.” He spoke with relieved confidence and a smile that made my body tense, a sharp contrast to the disquieting unrest He had exhibited days earlier when He had been a stranger to me in my chambers.  His calm made me tremble with terror.  I shakily tried to learn if He was even more of a danger.

 

“How do you feel?  Are you… yourself?”  He nodded at me and then held up His arms for a moment to examine the many stitches they now bore.  One of the infected wounds still wept fluid but at least now it was clear, odorless and crusting over.  His arms fell to His sides rather weakly and I dared to sit on the edge of the bed by His side.  He scrutinized me carefully and my heart began to flutter in fear but I barely held my composure.  He angled His head and found the Apple sitting on the bedside table.  He appeared to visibly relax and He turned His strange eyes to me. 

 

His voice was soft and far away but His cat-like eyes remained fixed on me as He spoke.

 

“I had many dreams…  I do not know if they were real.  I dreamed of you, Lily, your love for me… always with me.”   I was afflicted by inertia and couldn’t form words for a moment.  I feared correcting Him but I feared allowing Him to believe I loved Him more.  It was a dilemma and so I attempted to remain neutral.

 

“You came to me, my Husband, dirty and injured.  I bathed you and tended your wounds in my chambers.  Do you recall?”  The King thought and then nodded at me with His forehead creased in concentration. 

 

“It is faded in my mind…. my beautiful wife….”  He reached His hand to my cheek and stroked it.  I wanted to cringe away but instead I took His large hand in mine and held it to my lips to appease Him.  He was still weak, for His hand became heavy and He lowered it down again. 

 

“You need to rest, Husband.  I’ll tell your men that you’ve woken and you must take food to get well.”  I began to rise and the King looked at me with an unusual need in His expression. 

 

“Come back after you have spoken to my men.  Lay here, that I might have you near me.  You bring me peace with your presence.”  I believe I managed to contain the wail of dismay that welled up in me.  A small sound came from my chest but perhaps He took it as a noise of concern.

 

“As you command, my Lord.”  I went to the heavy doors and knocked upon them.  One of them opened and I relayed to the guard there that the King had woken and that He needed a light meal of broth.  Returning to the bed, I climbed into it next to Him and He rolled onto His side and placed His arm over me.  I, too, turned onto my side with my back to Him and allowed Him to pull me against His stomach only so I wouldn’t have to look at Him and His awful, inhuman eyes.  His breathing became that of a man asleep only moments later and I was trapped.  His hand rested on the bed in front of me and I allowed myself to slip into a fantasy that it wasn’t the King’s arm. 

 

Perhaps I would find happiness if I pretended it belonged to a man I could actually care for, one who kept me warm out of love with his body so close.  My thoughts turned to Nicholas against my will and yet I allowed the fantasy to continue.  I will never forget the way he looked at me while the King was taking His pleasure from me in front of him.  He wanted to stop it all, I know it.  He endured his beating for my sake and yet still tried to give me strength by not looking fully upon my nakedness.  His eyes stayed on mine and I… _loved him_ for it.  If it were Nicholas laying with me in that bed, we could be as innocent as kittens, and I would feel safe.  He would love me from his heart, not simply because he had the power to take me, as the King had.  I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what that would be like despite the powerful odor of smoke and char from the King’s skin filling my nose. 

 

I woke from the first pleasant dream I’d had in a great while when a servant arrived with a bowl of soup for the King and I used that as an excuse to escape the King’s arm.  He tightened around me but I boldly pushed Him off and got up.  The dream was too fresh in my mind to forget and the comparison of the King’s presence was disheartening beside the bright fantasy I’d lived in my head.  I felt guilty for it nonetheless, for I had begun to view myself as a married woman no matter how unwilling I’d been to the union, and did my duty by sending the servant away and feeding the King with my own hands.  He spoke little but His eyes watched me carefully as I filled the spoon again and again and brought it to His lips.  I wiped His mouth with a soft cloth and patiently held a goblet of water for Him to drink from.  When He was done, I ordered the man-servants to help the King to His bathing chambers and into the filled basin but I took it upon myself to bathe Him as penance for my adulterous thoughts, no matter how justified I tried to make them.  The sheets of the bed were changed and I dressed the King in soft, loose cotton pants.  I held the sheets for Him as the servants helped Him get back into bed. 

 

When He was settled and the servants had left us, the King took my hand.

 

“Come here, wife.”  I considered making excuses but held my tongue.  Instead, I knelt down beside Him and He touched my face again. 

 

“I know you feel I have treated you badly.  But you are good for me, Lily.  With you beside me I can make this place into a kingdom.  Tomorrow you will join me at Petitions.”  I cut Him off in protest.

 

“My King!  You’ve only just woken from your ordeal!” He silenced me with His fingers over my mouth. 

 

“Hush.  I will be at Petitions and you will join me.  My strength already returns to me from your care.”  He allowed me to leave His presence to bathe and eat as I pleased but He said I was to sleep in His bed with Him that night.  I did as He asked.  Indeed, His strength returned to Him quickly, for in the dim hours of the early morning, He woke me with His hands roving beneath my night gown and His fingers finding my most sensitive places.  He pulled me on top of Him and took my gown from me.  As I dutifully moved over Him, I closed my eyes and imagined another man beneath me, one with sandy colored hair, pale grey eyes and a scar on his face.   It was a dangerous thing to do and yet I was able to take a surprising amount of pleasure from it, even if it was only in my mind.  All I had to do was open my eyes and see the King’s cat-like turquoise ones glowing in the darkness to break the fantasy so I kept them steadfastly closed tight.

 

**The 17 th of February in the 16th year of the New Order Under our Lord and King**

The King walked under His own power to breakfast and back to His chambers with me.  More shocking than that act was when He opened a locked drawer and removed a crown from it.  It was a simple thing yet it clearly marked me as belonging to Him.  The narrow band was of hammered gold, as wide as my thumb and embellished in the center with a large, pale blue sapphire.  There were two matching canine teeth of what could only have been a wolf on either side of it.  They were embedded in the gold so that their thick root ends were facing the polished stone and the pointed portions curved away like the wings of a bird in flight.  On the back side of it were three lengths of fine gold chains attached to the crown about two finger widths apart, the center one being the longest, each one bearing a bone-white bead above a blue and white feather of a bluejay that would lay over my hair.  It was rather starkly beautiful in its simplicity, bearing the rugged appearance of the wolf’s teeth and the softness of the feathers.  It merged the King’s concept of the kingdom He had spoken of on so many occasions with His heritage seamlessly and I couldn’t help but admire it.  He asked me to undress and once I was standing naked before Him, He put the crown upon my head. 

 

He turned me around and looked at it on me before pulling me in close to kiss me.  I wasn’t surprised when He then took me while I wore it.  He stood beside the bed and lay me on my back at the edge to do it, holding my ankles in His hands.  Despite the way He had positioned me, He was gentle and I didn’t dare slip into another fantasy during it, for it seemed clear to me that He wanted me fully present and aware of what I was to Him.  And how could I forget His uncanny ability to sense my thoughts?  Perhaps His latest incident had made His senses even keener so I quickly quelled my thoughts to only empty things. 

 

**The 18 th of February in the 16th year of the New Order Under our Lord and King**

 

In the space of one day, the King was as hale and healthy looking as He ever had been, shocking seemingly no one other than me.  His arms bore the clear evidence of His self inflicted injuries but He simply wound long strips of soft, dyed leather around them below His metal arm bands, put on His heavy gauntlets and they were effectively hidden.  His bear pelt covered most of His chest, along with the long tails of the wolf hat.  I don’t think anyone would question His frightful scars anyway, for fear of death.  No one was allowed to look upon Him so with only quick glances His way, the evidence of His transformation wouldn’t be readily apparent.  Maybe it couldn’t be hidden forever, but enough accounts of His terrible appearance and cruelty were swirling throughout the kingdom that word of Him having the eyes of an unnatural mountain lion would fit right in. 

 

The crowd at Petitions was enormous.  There must have been hundreds of people present and it was a relief to sit down on the cushion beside the King, for the crown I wore felt intolerably heavy under the weight of their plight.  For the most part, the King fell into His routine of granting or denying Petitions in seeming arbitrary indifference.  Time and again, I had to turn my mind from the hideous scene of carnage I had experienced when I attempted to intervene on Nicholas’ behalf.  I would never again be the cause of such awful devastation upon the people, for I was already unbearably blood guilty and couldn’t survive knowing I was even more so.  So my mouth stayed closed, my hands rarely strayed from my lap and I smiled emptily at the people as they bowed to the floor to kiss the hem of my dress or grovel in thanks to me after doing so to the King.  I pray I portrayed queenly grace beside the terrible King. Perhaps it would give them just a little hope. 

 

When the long hours of Petitions came to an end I was utterly exhausted.  Not so the King.  He led me to His chambers and had me take His ornamental things from His body so He could adorn His person in His weapons.  He spent the rest of the evening and long into the night out in the forest beyond the perimeter of the Palace grounds hunting.  I write from the confines of my own chambers this night, for I cannot bear the idea of sitting up waiting for Him to return in His. 

 

**The 2 nd of March in the 16th Year of the New Order Under our Lord and King**

 

The King seems to have boundless energies.  He hunts at night, preferring the darkness to the light more often than not.  He’ll spend all day at Petitions or managing the Palace and Kingdom and then after dinner He’ll disappear.  I’m not terribly upset by this change, for it means fewer nights spent in His bed, by His side.  He still finds time to take His pleasure with me but it’s usually more hurried and rather cursory, an event that takes place between Petitions and dinner.  He continues to enjoy torturing me with that Apple until I’m glad to have the relief His attentions provide, though He isn’t nearly as ruthless with it as He used to be.  Now that I’ve proven my loyalty to Him, perhaps He no longer feels the need to punish me so publicly.  I wear the crown of a queen, and a queen should not be writhing and moaning like a common whore within the public eye, though when He wishes me to do so, there is no stopping it.  Thankfully He usually waits until we are out of sight to bring me to my knees.  Sadly, that is where His decorum stops, for more than once, He has taken advantage of me in front of His guards, and I hold no dignity before them, crown or not.  I’ve performed acts of such perversion within their sight, it’s no wonder they look with disgust upon me.  I’m just another slave serving the King. 

 

His newest pleasure is having me kneel before Him, wearing nothing but the crown, and take Him into my mouth.  I suppose it isn’t any different than the times He has used His mouth upon my organs of sex yet He seems to derive much more enjoyment from the act than do I.  I cannot force sensations upon Him with any possessed toy as He does to me yet for Him it doesn’t seem necessary.  He simply uses His hands upon my head to direct me and at times I feel close to vomiting from choking upon Him and His resulting emissions.  His reluctance to allow me the freedom to move my head on my own is the cause of great distress to me and at times I cannot withhold the tears that come from my eyes both from the humiliation of the act and choking upon Him.  His enjoyment of this act is so great that He becomes more vocal in His climax than I have ever heard Him before.  Sometimes He will kneel down in front of me afterwards and speak to me gently while caressing my skin but I cannot look Him in the eyes.  I want to push Him away for using me so.  All I want is to be alone and bathe away the filth of such indignity.  Yet even the hottest water I can manage isn’t enough to dispel the absolute corruption of my body. 

 

I cannot speak of it to my guard, even though he has witnessed it on more than one occasion.  I once wept so violently within the privacy of my chambers that I became ill afterwards.  My guard came in and knelt beside me where I was vomiting into my wash bowl and gathered my hair up so it would not become soiled.  When I had ceased my internal turmoils, he gathered me up instead and held me until I was calmed.  I remember hearing him humming something very softly, low in his chest; a repetitive, wordless tune that lulled me, along with the motion of his body back and forth.  It was what a parent would do for a baby or very young child but it reached deep within me and soothed my tortured soul.  Perhaps he did not need to hear from my lips why I wept.  As a silent observer of the King's appetite for all things carnal, he would have to be a fool not to know. His comfort and kindness was enough.  I had the rare pleasure of a dreamless sleep afterwards. 


	8. Chapter 8

**The 10 th of March in the 16th Year of the New Order Under our Lord and King**

 

I’ve been discovered!  How could I have been so careless with my idle thoughts and foolish fantasies?  He must have known the moment I let myself even think of Nicholas in this way - perhaps He could see even my dreams- and has been waiting, waiting for the right way to show me He knew!  I’m so ashamed!  He’s turned a silly daydream into my most utter shame! 

 

We went to Petitions the same as any other day.  I wore the blue dress with the two thick leather belts I had worn when attending Petitions for the first time with the King.  It was one of His favorites.  When we got to the throne room it was empty.  Not a soul other than the King and I were there until He had me sit on my cushion beside His throne.  I didn’t have long to wonder what was going on because once the doors behind us closed another, smaller door was opened at the ground level.  I raised my hands to my face when two guards led Nicholas into the throne room.  I couldn’t help it, his hands were bound behind his back, his hair fell loose to his shoulders and he was shirtless and covered in a multitude of fresh and fading bruises that were visible even with the distance between us.  The King made a quiet sound of smug knowing at my reaction and I knew my mistake had become revealed.  That wasn’t enough, though, for the King was going to show me just how far He was willing to go to punish both of us. 

 

The guards dragged Nicholas to the upper dais and despite their rough handling, he walked as tall as possible.  The guards pushed him down to his knees before the King and he was shoved forward to kiss the Apple the King held out to him.  I wrung my hands in my lap and tried not to watch.  He had clearly been treated badly for what looked like weeks.  The King raised His booted foot and pushed Nicholas away until he was sitting on his heels.  Instead of bowing his head, Nicholas looked directly up at the King!  I was sure he would be killed right before me! 

 

But then the King spoke, keeping His cat-eyes on Nicholas.

 

“Your friend Nicholas and I have had some conversations recently, have we not?”  The King glared at Nicholas but he defiantly refused to answer Him or look away.  My blood ran cold at this strange development.  The King went on, unperturbed at Nicholas’ behavior.

 

“He insists he has never attempted to woo you and yet your feelings for him speak otherwise, Lily.  I asked you once….”  At that moment, the King took a handful of my hair at the back of my head and turned me to face Him. 

 

“… if you had feelings for him and you said you did not.”  Tears pooled in my eyes and ran down my cheeks unchecked.  I trembled beneath His hand and unrelenting gaze until it was clear my silence was answer enough.  He released my hair with a slight shove.  I fell forward onto my hands and stayed there as the King continued in the same, calm voice that had an undercurrent of hostility. 

 

“Why would you lie to me?  I wish only to make you happy, Lily.  If you told me you wanted to bed this peasant I might have considered letting you do so with a guard present to ensure your safety.”  I raised my head up, flabbergasted at the King’s nonsensical words.  Why, after displays of such possessive jealousy toward any man who I expended even the most minimal empathy for, would he suddenly act as if taking a lover were natural and forgivable? 

 

“But now you force me to listen to the pleas of this kneeling boy.  My dear, my clemency does have limits, but for you….  I will allow it.”  Turning to Nicholas, the King gestured with His hand between us. 

 

“Go ahead, peasant.  Ask for her freedom, as you have done so often and I have had to beat you for your insolence.”  Nicholas remained silent.  I shuddered with new tears for what trick the King was playing out upon him.

 

“Ask!  I am generous only on rare occasions.  Ask and I will let her go to you.”  Nicholas’ eyes turned to me and I stared hopelessly back at him.  The King took this as a personal affront and jumped to His feet.

 

“Ask me!  Not her!  Me!”  His words came out in a thunderous, guttural snarl.  Nicholas looked up at Him.

 

“Please, my Lord and King, let Lily go and I will take her safely from here,” he intoned almost mockingly.  I was shocked at his blatant insubordination.  Instead of killing Nicholas that instant in a rage, the King smirked slightly.  His voice dropped to a low, sinister growl.

 

“Beg for her.”  The two men locked eyes, a King and a beaten man, and at last, Nicholas dropped his head in defeat.  I felt only the slightest relief. 

 

“Please, my one God and generous King, I’m begging you now!  Please release Lily!  Release her… please…”  Nicholas’ words rang out loudly despite his bowed head, though his last word trailed off in near despair.  The King stepped closer and raised His chin while still looking down at Nicholas.  The Apple began to glow brightly in His hand and though He spoke quietly, the words rang in my ears for their incongruous unreality. 

 

“Take her.  You may have her.  It is what she wants, after all.”  The King gestured to the guards and they bodily dragged Nicholas down to the next dais below.  He then raised the brightly glowing Apple towards Nicholas and a panicked look filled his features.  He looked between the King and me as he struggled against the guards. 

 

“No!  No!  This isn’t what I asked for! You know it wasn’t this!”  The guards cut the ropes holding his wrists but held onto him so he could do no more than struggle against them.  The King ignored Nicholas’ cries and turned to me. 

 

“Go to him.  It is what you want.  Do not attempt to deny it.”  He spoke kindly and held His hand out toward the lower dais.  When I hesitated, He took me by my arm and lifted me to my feet.  He placed the Apple down into its nook on the throne and began to unbuckle the two belts holding my dress on me.  They fell loudly to the stone floor and He kicked them away with His foot.  The fabric loosened around my body and the tiniest breath of air made them move and reveal my naked sides.  I shivered when The King slid His hand beneath the fabric to run His palm over my breasts.  He then pulled me closer so He could murmur softly in my ear.  His lips brushed lightly against my earlobe as He spoke.

 

“I give you leave to freely take your pleasure from him but do not forget who you truly belong to.”  The King took my left nipple in His fingers and pinched it just enough to make me gasp.  I tried to speak but the King merely gave me a look of threatening solemnity.  I knew there was nothing to do but obey.  His so-called freedom certainly wasn’t absolute, nor in any way what Nicholas had meant.  The King sat down and picked up His Apple when I took a step away from Him.  He rested His elbow on the arm of the throne and raised the Apple up so He had to look past it at both me and Nicholas.  His eyes moved in Nicholas’ direction, indicating that I should continue down to him.

 

Nicholas stood on the lower dais looking up at me.  His face held a near rictus of distress and he was bent slightly forward as if his middle were in terrible pain.  I held the fabric of my dress at my sides to keep it from blowing open and completely exposing my naked body beneath as I took one slow step after another down the stairs. An endless dozen steps later and I stood before Nicholas.  I could hear his breathing and his eyes were full of fear and utter sadness. 

 

“This isn’t what I intended, Lily, I’m sorry.  You’re beautiful but this isn’t want I wanted to happen.  I wanted to take you away!  Set you free to live and love as you willed… you don’t deserve this-”  Nicholas’ words were cut off by the King’s.

 

“Silence!  It _is_ what you wanted! It is what _both_ of you want.”  When He finished talking, Nicholas winced and let out an anguished breath as his hands jerked toward his groin but were stopped by the grip the guards had on his arms. My eyes widened as I realized the King was using the Apple on Nicholas.  It seemed He could control a man’s arousal just as easily as a woman’s.  The King continued. 

 

“Do it.  Make love to her.  Give her what she wants.”  The guards were watching the King and at His signal they released Nicholas’ arms and stepped back a few paces to the edge of the dais.  They both rested their hands on the hilts of their swords.  I stood facing Nicholas and gripping my dress so hard that my hands hurt.  We were close enough that I could see the sweat beading on Nicholas’ forehead.  His jaw was clenched and his breathing was rapid and irregular. The King was torturing him!  I whispered to him, not knowing if the King would hear me but not caring, either. 

 

“It’s alright.  I know what He’s doing to you.  He’s done it to me a hundred times.”  I unclasped my hands and began to gather my dress up in them against my thighs.  When I had enough of it in hand, I slowly drew it over my head.  One of the feathers dangling from the crown caught on the fabric and tugged briefly on it, reminding me that I still wore the mark of a queen.  I raised my hands to it to remove it. 

 

“Leave it on.”  The King’s voice echoed in the chamber and my hands fell to my sides as if He had used the Apple on me.  He hadn’t but He had controlled me for so long He didn’t need to anymore.  I stepped closer to Nicholas and reached up to move his hair back from his right cheek.  He seemed to tremble under my fingers as they brushed his cheekbone and passed behind his ear.  I ran them lightly over the scar on his chin and followed it down his neck, over his deformed collar bone and down his chest, marked by the recent beatings he had endured.  I continued down, following his old scars as they crossed the place where his right nipple used to be and further, sliding off the edge of his scar where it ended at the bottom of his chest muscles.  His injury from working on the Wall must have nearly taken his life.  I found his hand and took it up to lay upon my breast.  This wouldn’t end until the King was satisfied so I was going to get it over with as soon as possible.  Nicholas pulled his hand back but I held on and met his eyes. 

 

“It’s alright.”  I whispered.  The King echoed my sentiment His own way.

 

“Touch her, peasant!  Or I will order my men to remove your hands so you will never again touch anything so perfect in your life.”  The sound of the guards loosening their swords in their sheaths resulted in Nicholas complying quickly to the King’s order.  He pressed his palm against my breast and when I touched his other hand with my fingers, he brought it up to cover my other breast.  He seemed to be breathing easier, though still rapidly, and I hoped the King had let up with the Apple a bit now that we were obeying Him.   I let my hands rest on the bend of Nicholas’ elbows and we looked at each other for a long time in silence.   His eyes continued to apologize to me and I shook my head ever so slightly.  I knew he had only the best of intentions but the King had exploited them mercilessly.  No one knew the King’s volatility more than I and no one but the King was to blame for how senseless everything around Him was. 

 

The King commanded us once again.

 

“Kiss her!” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Him gesture impatiently with His hand.  I tightened my fingers on Nicholas’ arms.

 

“Please, just do this.  It won’t end unless we do.  It’s alright.  It’s alright.”  My whispers were shaky and I felt my eyes burning with new tears.   Nicholas at last let his eyes fall from mine and he settled his view upon my lips.  He took his hands from my breasts and raised them to the sides of my neck and jaw.  I pulled on his arms and he leaned down to touch his lips to mine.  He kept his mouth closed but I had grown accustomed to the more aggressive, open mouthed kisses of the King, so his bottom lip ended up between mine.  He breathed in suddenly, as if I had frightened him.  I pulled on his arms again and touched my tongue to his lips.  I wanted him to know that it couldn’t stop now.

 

Though his body was tense, Nicholas kissed me at last.  He moved one of his hands off of my neck and brought it around my waist to pull me in tighter and I heard a somewhat satisfied noise come from the King.  I reached down and blindly groped for the buttons on the breeches Nicholas wore.  I could feel how overly aroused he was due to the King’s penchant for cruelty.  Once I had unbuttoned one side of his breeches, I pushed them down to his hips as far as I could.  I struggled to lower them further but I couldn’t reach. 

 

“Stop!”  We both froze and separated from each other at the King’s loud command.  He looked at Nicholas.

 

“Get rid of those.”  Nicholas removed his breeches and let them drop to the floor. 

 

“Both of you… kneel.”  We knelt facing each other but I could only look at the floor or my clasped hands before me.  The King’s next words made me raise my head and stare at Him in disbelief.

 

“I have a sudden desire to see my queen-wife pleasuring a peasant.”  I clenched my teeth and closed my eyes, recounting the times the King had had me seeing to His carnal desires with my mouth.  When no further direction came from the King, I opened my eyes, stoically reached to Nicholas’ shoulders and pushed him until he sat back.  I crawled forward and rested my hands on his bent knees.  I then made the mistake of looking up at Nicholas.  He only looked at me for a moment before turning his face away.  He was clearly horrified at the King using me on him in such a way.  Battling through my own shame and forcibly separating myself from believing this was any kind of reality, I slid my hands along the insides of Nicholas’ thighs and ran them up toward his groin.  The muscles in his legs tensed and he made as if to resist me but at the same moment he looked at my face and relented under my silent determination. I lowered myself down and took him into my mouth.  Nicholas made such a sound of agonized pleasure, I feared I was actually hurting him.  If I stopped, I knew the King would only be displeased, so I moved as slowly as I could. 

 

“I’ve reconsidered!”  The King said from His throne.  I immediately stopped what I was doing and sat up.  Nicholas looked nearly unconscious where he lay on the flagstone floor, except for the way his face was contorted in a mix of rapture and horror, but he opened his eyes and struggled up to a sitting position only a moment later.  The King continued. 

 

“I want you to please Lily.  After all, you are her inferior.  You should be serving her.”  When Nicholas and I had swapped positions and I lay upon the cold floor,  I looked up at the King.  He looked directly at me and lifted His chin slightly before continuing to direct Nicholas. 

 

“Touch her.  Taste her.  Think only of her pleasure.  It is in your best interests not to disappoint either of us in this.”  He directed His fierce gaze at Nicholas and he bent down to me as I had to him.  Despite feeling repugnance for the spectacle we had become, I was used to being on public display while performing sexual acts.  Since it wasn’t the King doing such things to me, replaced by a man who was just as unwilling as I, I actually felt less horrified than I might have been.  Had I become so corrupted in my moral sense that this forced act was somehow less terrible than the others?  I turned my head so I was no longer looking at the King and instead stared out across the empty expanse of the throne room.  My disconnected feelings began to subside as Nicholas stroked the skin of my sides and legs softly and continued to keep his head burrowed between my legs.  It wasn’t as unpleasant as it should have been and I closed off the world around me to escape.  I wanted it to all just be a bad dream. 

 

Yet, something about it felt so right that I couldn’t shut out what Nicholas was doing.  It felt good and natural.  I realized it was because I didn’t feel like there was too much heat touching me.  There was no inhuman odor of fire and smoke reaching my nose and when I looked down at Nicholas he happened to look up at me at the same moment.  His eyes didn’t glow or shine like an animal’s.  He was a normal, human man.  A sense of relief flooded me unexpectedly and I let my body relax.  I closed my eyes and concentrated on all those normal sensations, letting them take over my mind instead of working at pushing them away, as I always did with the King. 

 

A climax took me so quickly that I sat up as I cried out, the feeling of Nicholas’ tongue suddenly too much upon me that I pushed his head away.  I heard the King laugh softly. 

 

“It seems you are not completely useless.  Carry on.  Give her all of what you have to give.”  The King spoke quietly and it was then that I noticed He had His hand resting upon Himself.  Apparently He took more types of enjoyment from watching us than merely the power to command it.  Nicholas had noticed it as well and he appeared as if he would speak.  I halted him by taking his hand and pulling on it as I lay back down.  He sensibly kept silent and crawled up my body.  He stayed on his hands and knees over me silently, both begging forgiveness and asking permission at the same time.  Before I could nod, the King spoke loudly from His place. 

 

“Get on with it, peasant!”  His tone was dangerous and I shakily pulled Nicholas closer by his shoulders.  He winced unexpectedly.

 

“I’m sorry, Lily.  He’s… making it difficult.”  Nicholas spoke through clenched teeth and I nodded and kissed him.  I wanted his torture to end so I welcomed him into me.  The King made a satisfied noise and then was silent.  I thought I would again do nothing other than restrict my perceptions to only feeling what was happening to me, but I was kissing Nicholas.  I couldn’t stop.  I didn’t until I was overtaken by another climax that seemed mere minutes behind the first one.  I fell back and watched Nicholas moving over me with his eyes fixed on me.  They were darker than before and I was fascinated by their _humanity_ as he seemed to near his own release.  His face changed in an instant to an expression of pain and then he was screaming as his body went rigid over me.  I screamed as well when Nicholas collapsed on top of me.  I pushed him off and felt him leave my body.  He writhed beside me as the King appeared within my view, carrying the Apple that shone like fire in His hand.  I lay still as He looked at where the evidence of Nicholas’ agonizing release was escaping my body. 

 

“Are you satisfied with him?  Did he please you?”  The King queried me softly.  I could do nothing other than nod.  I hoped the King was satisfied with what had transpired as well.  All he did was turn and gesture to the two guards who had stood by and watched it all.  They stepped forward and grabbed Nicholas, hauled him to his feet and escorted him down the stairs and out of the throne room.  He could barely function because of what the King had done to him with that Apple.

 

The King crouched down on one knee beside me and bent forward to touch the crown on my head.  I didn’t dare move from where I lay. 

 

“Do you still remember who you are?”  I nodded at His query and He sat me up.  I walked naked beside Him through the palace to His rooms.  He took me from behind, roughly, His anger and jealousy burning me from the inside. 

 

I’m afraid of what the new day will bring.  The King sent me to my rooms after He’d finished with me in His.  He wouldn’t even look at me.  I ate alone and will sleep alone tonight but I’m not happy for it.  I’m terrified.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this story is not as difficult to read as it is for me to write. So much time and distance has come between my original idea and the progression of this story that making Ratonhnhake:ton into such an evil, corrupted man is quite literally sickening and painful. I still have a ways to go before the end and at least three more major events to document that will shape Lily and King Ratonhnhake:ton's relationship before the end. None of this will get any easier and I apologize in advance if it takes longer and longer for me to update this story.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is pretty depressing and involves subject matter that could be exceptionally difficult or triggering for some.

**The 13 th of March in the 16th Year of the New Order Under our Lord and King** 

The King was incensed that I reached sexual satisfaction from the forced coupling I was made to do with Nicholas, even if what I’d experienced had been a pale echo compared to the contrived sensations He created with His Apple.  The things I’d felt, despite the humiliation surrounding the situation, had been genuine and they were of my body’s making.  Perhaps He had believed I was incapable of taking pleasure from any other man than Him.  I became so infuriated in return that I shouted at Him. Lord help me.  

“How can you be angry at something you forced me to do?  You _made_ us do that!  _You made us_!  And yet you condemn us both when we obey?  You’re more mad than I thought…”  it was a relief for the King to strike me.  It hurt but I had touched a nerve and was glad of it. I covered my face and turned away.  The King was silently recalcitrant and took me in His arms.  He stroked my shoulders and kissed my head.  He laid me on His bed, touched me softly and kissed me tenderly as He undressed me.  Every place His skin touched mine was like a burning brand and it repelled me.  I refused to look upon His face and He became angry once more when I didn’t respond favorably to His touch.  He finally resorted to using the Apple to yet again force me to feel things I couldn’t on my own.  He was far too feral and inhuman for me to ever enjoy His touch and He must have known that He was the originator of this conundrum.  I resisted the effects of the Apple as long as I could but the King pressed me.  He kept at it until the sensations became too great to withstand.  I wept and screamed and when I was taken over by them my body convulsed upon the bed and left me so weak and exhausted that I didn’t care about having to sleep beside the King, as long as I could close myself off from Him.    

I hate Him.  I hate what He does to me and those around Him.

 

**The 31 st of March in the 16th year of the New Order Under our Lord and King**

He’s done it again.  He forced Nicholas and I to have sexual congress for His entertainment.  This time He had me sit through Petitions as we always do, only He used the Apple on me until I was sweating and nearly writhing on my cushion beside the throne.  He seemed to drag out Petitions for a much longer time and then when the last petitioner exited the building He had Nicholas brought in.  

He had none of the bruises he had been covered in before and when he knelt before the King he refused to kiss the Apple.  Oh, Nicholas, if you only knew that it didn’t matter. After you’ve touched it once the King has power over you forever.  Nicholas received a stern look from the King but surprisingly nothing more for his refusal to comply with protocol.  

I was trembling and leaning on the side of the throne gasping in my forced need. At the King’s bidding, I undressed before them both, fumbling with my numb fingers to untie laces and open clasps until the King let up with His toy.  To my surprise, I didn’t fall to the floor at his command to go to Nicholas, where he had been made to stand on the lower dais, just as before.  I did, however, when the moment we were ordered to kiss, the King caused me to reach a climax that took over every aspect of my existence.  Nicholas managed to ease me down to the floor, even as my body spasmed in his arms and my screams echoed in the throne room.  I lay quiet at last, weak and broken and panting for breath, every last bit of energy drained from me.  Nicholas cradled my lolling head in his hands and watched me with panic in his eyes.  He moved some sweaty strands of hair from where they were stuck to my neck and whispered to me with agony in his throat. 

“Oh, Lily… the Hell you live in is beyond the ninth circle.” Just as he finished speaking, the King commanded him to take me.  Nicholas clenched his jaw and raised his face defiantly to the King. 

“I won’t do it!  Look at her!  You’ve destroyed her!”  The guards who had brought Nicholas in drew their swords and pointed them at Nicholas.  At a flick of the King’s wrist, the guards withdrew their weapons from Nicholas and instead pointed them at me.  Nicholas didn’t move, though he winced.  The King had turned His attentions with the Apple to him once again, now that I had been depleted so.  

“You will do as your King bids.”  One of the guards said, the huge man with the black handprint on his face who had no love for me, as he drew the tip of his sword along my collar bone and I felt it slice my skin.  A trickle of blood ran down the top of my shoulder and made its way beneath my body yet I lay still and uncaring.  Nicholas divided his attention between me and the King as he was clearly becoming more and more affected by the Apple’s influence.  Though incredibly weakened by what I’d experienced, I fought through the fog to fervently hope Nicholas would simply give in. I’d given up any sense of modesty or justice or repugnance at the King’s perversions.  Preforming sexual acts for the King’s entertainment meant survival for both of us, though I cared only for the preservation of Nicholas’ life.  He is a noble soul, and deserving of life.  If only there were a way to set him free… 

I have been the cause of so much death…  Yet how dare I insist upon sustaining the life of one man who wants me to live even if it’s at the expense of his life?  If he only knew the dreams I have of dying.  But if I were to die at the hands of the guards, Nicholas would be killed immediately as well, for the King’s wrath at losing His favorite would be unstoppable.  What a convoluted nightmare!  

I wept in relief when Nicholas did submit to the King.  Though he was in agony from the Apple being used on him, he still kissed me softly in apology on my face and mouth and moved gently in me.  Perhaps he thought my tears were those of sadness or distress.  In the end I found the strength to reach up to his shoulders and draw him down to lay upon me before he experienced yet another painful climax.  His scream of agony felt like it tore right through me as well and I heard the piercing echo of it in my ear long into the night. 

 

**The 18 th of June in the 16th year of the New Order under our Lord and King**

I carry Nicholas’ child inside me.  It has to be his, for after a year and a half in the bed of the King, I’ve never missed my monthly blood.  I used to miss in the winters, when food was scarce and I was but skin and bones.  But never once in my long imprisonment here, with food aplenty and my ribs no longer showing themselves in such stark relief under my skin have I ever missed.  After several instances of being given to Nicholas over the past months, I’ve now  missed three in a row.  I should be bleeding today yet I do not.  My skin is soft, my breasts are more full than I’ve ever seen them.  The King compliments my beauty often and has stopped taking as many nightly outings so He can keep me in His bed.    Every time He tells me Queenship suits me,  I fear anew.  He will surely rage when He finds out. 

 

**The 23 rd of June in the 16th year of the New Order Under our Lord and King**

That miserable, hateful, cursed old woman!  How dare she?  She invaded my chambers with my guard in tow this morning and had him ask me about my condition.  Has she nothing better to do than keep track of the state of my small clothes?  I tried to send them away but she had him hold my arms while she lifted my skirts, looked upon my nakedness and prodded at my body.  When I refused to answer her she pinched me on the inside of my thigh!  Still I balked at her insistent questioning via my guard.  At last, after my guard resorted to shamefacedly cajoling me on such private things, did I assert that I had not bled this month, nor the past three months and no, I wasn’t over-eating.  When the woman left me and my guard had shut the door, I fled to my bathing room and angrily began pumping water into my basin.  My anger temporarily outweighed my fear, and when my guard came in to take over the task I snarled at him in a most unappealing manner.  He spoke gently to me then.  

“Lily, the King needs to know that He will have an heir.”  I became terribly afraid, for I knew she would go straight to the King.  

“He won’t have an heir!  Don’t you understand?  Why now?  Why now after so long?  Only when he forces me to have relations with another man! That’s why!”  I shouted at him.  My guard stopped pumping the water and stood up straight to gaze at me from across the now eerily silent chamber.  Except for the hollow dripping from the faucet, there was nothing but stillness between us.  My guard spoke softly, breaking the silence with his sonorous voice.  

“Perhaps it would not be wise to point that out so forcefully.” He said.  I clenched my fist on the front of my dress and raised the other to cover my mouth as I turned away from him.  I couldn’t stop my tears.  

“Why do you think I haven’t mentioned that I’ve not been bleeding?  I don’t believe the King is capable of producing children.  Whatever else that thing has done to Him… it’s surely changed Him more than He knows.  I don’t even believe He’s human anymore!”  My guard didn’t answer me.  He filled my basin and left me alone.  It’s all I want now. 

 

**The 20 th of July in the 16th Year of the New Order Under our Lord and King** 

It’s been nearly a month since I last wrote.  What a shame that I’m writing yet again and I didn’t find rest at last in a grave.  Perhaps then the King would recognize His folly.  

Shortly after I had bathed and dressed after my intrusive examination by that woman, I recognized the sound of the King’s footsteps when He entered my chambers and crossed to the bathing room where I was draining the basin.  He stood in the doorway and regarded me with a strange expression on His face.  It was almost hopeful.

 “Is it true what Grandmother has reported?” 

 “What has she reported?” I replied tartly.  

“You are bearing my child.”  His words crushed me and I gripped the bodice of my dress in my fist fearfully as I forced myself to look up at His face and His cat eyes.  

“That seems to be the case…”  Even as I spoke, He moved closer to me to take me in His arms and smell the skin of my neck.  

“I thought you were different.  So beautiful… But then I wondered if it was just my love for you getting stronger.”  He kissed me and then moved to the side of my neck where He had smelled so deeply of me and bit my skin.  It wasn’t as hard as when He had bitten me so long ago when He had taken me for the first time but I still gasped in fear.  The King drew back and touched the place lightly before running His fingers down to the lacing at the front of my dress and pulling it out.  It was only a minute before I was in only my shift and the King was walking me backwards toward my bed.  I leaned against the end of it with my hands braced behind me on the mattress and looked up at the King as He stood before me.  His eyes were bright in the curtained room.  I watched them as He slid His hands over my breasts and down to my stomach.  When His pupils widened impossibly until there was but a thin ring of turquoise surrounding midnight blackness, my throat constricted.  He stood, bent slightly over with His palms pressed flat on either side of my abdomen.  The King’s eyebrows moved together and He glanced up at my face.  

“Lily…  this… I see red in you.  Red when there should be gold.  You are always gold.  It cannot be…”  The King murmured.  He was scrutinizing my abdomen and I tried to wriggle backwards onto the bed to escape but He tightened His fingers on me.  

“Hold still!”  His tone was harsh and I stopped immediately.  The King reached to His belt and withdrew His precious Apple.  It began to glow and He placed it against my abdomen.  Against His earlier command, I began to fight Him.  

“Lily!  I said do not move!”  He pushed me down on the bed with one hand on my chest and pressed the Apple against me with the other.  It lit up brighter as He stared intently at my abdomen.  I felt something then, unlike anything I’d ever felt from that thing before: pain.  It was burning me and I fought once more but the King pinned my legs with His against the foot of the bed.  I pleaded with Him. 

“Stop, please!  Stop!  Stop!  It hurts!  Oh, god it hurts!”  The pain rose in me until I started to scream in bursts.  I could see the light from the Apple even behind my closed lids as I struggled and tried to get away from the agony blooming in my body.  My screams were no longer pleas for Him to stop but had become wordless expressions of my torture.  The smell of my own urine saturating the blankets beneath me was only a passing awareness flitting through the sparkling fog I had found myself in.  I remember vomiting and then the pain ceasing at last, though it burned and burned deep within me.  Even with my eyes open, everything was dark and bursting with stars at every sound.  I may have been blind but I wasn’t deaf or numb.  The King picked me up, soiled as I was, and lay me down properly on the bed.  He lay beside me, holding me close and rocking my tormented body.  He spoke to me, a torrent of words that meant nothing… and everything.  

“Lily, my love, my queen.  I had to save you from it.  It was wrong.  Our enemy.  I wanted it to be ours, ours.  But it was his.  I had to do what I did.  Please try to understand.  I saved you.  I saved you.  I love you and I saved you….”  He kissed me as He spoke, caressed my hands and face but I only remember trembling and the tears that wouldn’t stop leaking from my eyes.  I was so cold and I just wanted to die. 

In the time that passed after I lost consciousness, the memories aren’t as distinct.  The King was there often, and the old woman.  My guard more than either of them.  I was never warm enough and my teeth chattered so badly my head hurt worse than my body.  I vaguely remember being moved and sheets being changed while the King or my guard held me.  I just wanted to sleep and I fought when spoons full of poison were brought to my parched and painful lips.  Sometimes I was sure they were feeding me bits of the baby the King had ripped from my body with claws that had grown from His hands, longer than a bear.  

Voices were indistinct, faces were blurred.  The King raged and shouted and then held me close in my bed.  For once I was grateful for the heat of His unnatural flesh but the stench of Him was overpowering.  

I was suddenly thrown into a freezing river in the middle winter.  My wicked neighbor had finally come for me, waving Thistle’s skinned carcass and entrails like macabre fishing lures and I was the fish, all the while chanting words I could not understand in the old woman’s voice.  I ran from him and he pushed me into the water.  When I looked back at him, he had transformed into my disfigured father and it was no longer Thistle in his twisted hands, but my own skinned body.  

I woke from my nightmares then with my teeth chattering in the cold water.  My guard held me in the bathing basin, clutching my fists in one of his hands and keeping me submerged up to my neck while supporting my head with his other hand.  He spoke kindly to me while the old woman stood by with her arms crossed over her bosom. 

“There you are.  Shhhh.”  He turned and said something to the old woman and she approached to lay her hand on my face.  She nodded and stroked my sodden hair softly.  Her eyes were more expressive than I had ever seen them before.  I would dare say she had a measure of relief in her expression but she quickly made a tutting sound and left the room.  

“I’m so cold…” I managed to say.  My own croaking voice startled me and my guard’s eyebrows shifted together with concern.  

“You must stay in for a little while longer.  You were in danger of dying from your fever.  It hasn’t broken for days and you were delirious.  We couldn’t even get water into you.”  I tried to think but my mind was hazy at best.  

“What fever?  I’m not sick.”  I struggled to sit up and found that I was as weak as a baby.  The realization hit me hard and the memories of what had happened came flooding back.  I clutched at my guard’s shoulder and he held me up as I looked down at the water I was in and took in its subtle shade of pink.  A sound came from me that I cannot describe. Perhaps it was a moan or a broken wail.  It wasn’t anything I will ever forget and it rings still in my mind, on and on.  It was the sound of loss and pain and betrayal.  My hands fell from my guard’s shoulder as my eyes burned.  No tears would even come, for I was far too dehydrated to even weep for my lack.  

So my body was purged once again and I was left empty of life as well as the will to exist.  The King came in and sat with me frequently, holding me close or reading from one of the books He would bring.  I wouldn’t speak to Him but He kept telling me He loved me and wanted me to be safe.  I let Him kiss me and caress me.  I let Him say His words.  It all slid over me and still I remained empty. 

My guard caught me attempting to cut my wrists with shards of a vase I’d broken once I had the strength to stand.  It wasn’t difficult for him to take the pieces from my bloodied fingers, for I was still frighteningly weak.  I stared at the blood and wondered how such a simple looking substance meant life and the lack of it meant death.  I asked my guard why that was.  He took everything breakable from the room and locked it way.  When I would wake screaming at night he would come in and sit by my bedside, softly singing the songs that had soothed me once before so long ago.  

It took many more days for me to feel a little like a living soul again.  Sometimes it’s so far away that it is more like a wisp of a dream or a breath of cool air than anything solid. Though I stay in my rooms, the King has begun returning to His daily activities of hunting, Petitions and ruling His sad, hopeless, dying kingdom.   My guard lets me embroider in his presence now, but he takes away the needles whenever he goes.   I always thank him for being so kind.  He answers with a nod and rushes from the room.


	10. Chapter 10

**The 3rd of December in the 16th Year of the New Order under our Lord and King**  
  
I can’t look at Him. The King. Even after I nearly died from His actions He pretends nothing is amiss. He thinks I should be grateful for His affection and His assault upon my person and unborn child. I cannot be. I am dead in so many ways, just as the foliage of summer withers away and falls to the ground in winter. Buried in snow and sadness, I fear I’ll never find life again in me yet my body continues on, healthy, strong… If I cease eating the King rants, the old woman brings food to me no matter where I go and watches me eat, my guard at her side to force me if necessary. I feel sick and want to vomit after but they watch me for hours so I cannot.   
  
My guard makes me get up and dress every day to walk the Palace walls or halls. It’s better to just obey. I tried to resist him once at the end of summer. I let my knees buckle beneath me like a petulant child and sat on the floor. He tried to convince me with gentle and then irritated words to get up and I ignored him. He picked me up but I sat back down again. He threw cold water on me but still I refused to budge so he picked me up, put me over his shoulder and carried me down all the stairs as I tried fruitlessly to grasp at his hips and push myself off of him. That failing, I beat upon his back and buttocks with my fists. I kicked my feet until he restrained my legs. I fought and thrashed upon his shoulder like a furious mermaid but only succeeded in causing myself much discomfort. He brought me to the doors of the room where the King was meeting with His men. Placing me down, where I promptly sat on the floor just as before, he threatened to open the doors and show my behavior to everyone present. I was dressed in only my shift I’d been sleeping in and it was soaked with water from the dousing he’d given me. My guard went so far as to turn the handle and start opening the door before I got to my feet and glared at him. He closed the door silently and gestured that I precede him back to my chambers. I did, though with little dignity. If I’d been wearing shoes my angry footsteps would have been loud upon the stone floors but since my incarceration, not a single cobbled leather creation had found its way upon my feet. Silk and satin slippers were my shoes now, or no shoes at all.   
  
The King has made me lay with Nicholas several times in the five months since He so cruelly relieved me of my pregnancy. With the onset of fall and winter, He kindly provided furs for us to lay upon, lest His precious queen take ill during such lewd acts. The things we have done for the King’s entertainment… they are nothing I haven’t experienced already at the hands of the King Himself yet when the purpose is fully for the King’s viewing pleasure, it’s become so much more unbearable. Nicholas tries to speak to me, to distract me from what we do in the times we spend upon the throne room floor together. I’ve found that it merely prolongs the act, for it serves as a distraction for him as well. He tells me that one day, he’ll get us out of this place. Always, his determination to get away…. Will he never just let it go? I tell him it’s impossible. He shakes his head and kisses my cheek in answer. He’s a terribly stubborn man.   
  
**The 14th of February in the 17th year of the New Order under our Lord and King**  
  
I visited Nicholas in his cell today. I persuaded my guard to take me to see him. I’d made the request of him many times before and it took him months to relent. Perhaps he had sought permission from the King, perhaps not. I cannot bring myself to care. I thought he would at least be kept in some lower room in the Palace, guarded by more of the King’s men. No. He is kept in a cell in the Palace prisons. I felt horridly out of place in such an environment despite having been there before. My skirts dragged through the dirt on the floors despite my efforts to hold them up. Prisoners whispered and pleaded to me with their hands through the bars as my guard led me past them, on and on to the end of the row. My heart broke for them all yet I gave them no heed. I had not the power to save even one of them and if I dared allow compassion to flood into me I’d have fallen to the floor.  
  
Nicholas’ cell was separated from the rest by several empty ones. He came to the door of his cell and held the bars before his face when I drew near. He was somewhat dirtier than I had grown used to seeing him, and I kept a distance between us for I could barely stand to look at him in such a state. Yet, when he smiled at me I stepped forward, as if pulled by a tether, and covered his hands with mine. I could think of nothing to say to him, for my heart ached terribly at the conditions he was forced to live in.   
  
He has a wooden bench with blankets to sleep on and a bucket in the corner for his privy use. My guard had already informed me he is fed two meals a day and is taken with the other prisoners at sunup and made to work in and around the palace doing manual labor. They are given a day of rest from time to time; today was one of those.  
  
For a long while we didn’t speak. My guard turned his back to us and stood a few steps away to watch the hallway. His stance blocked the view of us from the other prisoners who tried to see what was going on from their cells. At long last I broke the silence between us. I had to tell Nicholas what had happened to me so long ago, what the King had done to the life we had unwillingly created together. I whispered my tale to him and he reversed the positions of our hands so he was holding mine tightly. I gave way to tears of regret at last and Nicholas, clearly pained at the telling of my story, barely held in his own, it seemed. When I closed my eyes and rested my face against the bars and our hands, he kissed my forehead between the bars and lightly stroked my skin with his fingers. His touch was gentle and sweet and it spoke of his emotions more than his words that came later ever could.   
  
“He is wicked and unjust. I will never rest at getting you free from Him, even if I must die trying.” At that, I found my voice again and urged him in a whisper to reconsider.  
  
“Please, Nicholas, you don’t understand. He would find us! And if you were to die because of me…. Please don’t lay that burden upon me! I’m already a killer of so many strangers… I couldn’t bear being the cause of your death as well. Please! Don’t do this thing! I care too much for you! I would rather be the one to die, for I believe it’s the only way one of us could have a chance of being free.” Nicholas continued to stroke my face as I spoke and his eyes reflected the light from the hall between the cells.

  
“Lily, you are a slave to Him! I cannot abide what He does!”

  
“Nor can I, but He has powers… He knows things… things in my mind! In your mind! He would know your plans before you could execute them!” Nicholas shook his head at my words, confused. I tried to explain.

  
“That Apple… that orb He always carries… It’s changed Him. He’s no longer a man. Nicholas, He’s fifty years of age yet appears no older than you! He’s a monstrosity… an aberration… because of that thing!” I gripped the bars in a desperate attempt to convey the seriousness of the matter. Nicholas considered my words carefully and narrowed his eyes in thought.

  
“Can you get it from Him?” His words made nausea rise in my stomach.

  
“No. I tried to take it once, to… to use it upon Him as He had used it upon me and keep Him from touching me but it was just a heavy, dead stone in my hand. And the King knew the moment I touched it, for He woke from a deep sleep the instant my hand fell upon its surface. I spent several days in these very cells for it, fearing my life would end.” Before Nicholas could respond, my guard was at my side. He spoke to me, looking between us angrily and with a hint of fear.

  
“Enough of this treasonous talk! I should not have allowed this. Come.” He took me by my upper arm, yet he didn’t pull upon it. I exchanged a long look with Nicholas and he squeezed my hands gripping the bars and then bent his head down to kiss the knuckles of my right hand before stepping backwards and letting his hands slide off of mine. I felt bereft when he disappeared into the shadows in the rear of his cell. I wanted to weep but I kept myself contained, even when my guard at last tugged gently on my arm to guide me out of the dungeon. I walked as if in a trance before him, thinking upon the conversation I’d had with Nicholas.  
  
We were silent, my guard and I, as we climbed the many steps to my rooms. After unlocking and opening the door to let me in, I was at last affected by the meaning of the conversation I’d had with Nicholas. The gravity of what he had been proposing made me shudder. To steal the orb! Impossible! I shivered and rubbed my arms before I realized I hadn’t heard the door close and the lock click into place. I turned abruptly and found my guard watching me sadly. I returned to him and looked up at his face. It was creased with worry. His brows knitted together even further with concern when he spoke.  
  
“Do not do this, Lily. Do not allow it!” I shook my head.

  
“I won’t. We couldn’t, I know. It’s a fool’s errand.” My guard made a dismissive sound in his throat.

  
“I did not mean your talk of escaping! I was referring to your heart. You may not have any love for the King but neither should you love another… even if he insists upon giving his love to you.” My breath caught painfully in my chest at his words. I wanted to disprove that there was any modicum of truth to them but the argument died upon my lips and slipped to the floor, eddying away like dust. There was no denying what I perhaps had known for some time now. I’d latched upon a fantasy and in my desperation to find some fraction of hope, I’d managed to fall in love with a man who cared enough about me to die trying to set me free. My heart is truly treacherous! The room blurred before me and my head spun. I could feel the blood pumping in my veins and the very air around me thrummed with sound as I stumbled backwards from the door, unable to breathe for the frightening feelings that had coalesced within my body. What had I done? Darkness closed in upon me, the embodiment of fear. My guard lunged for me and grabbed the front of my dress as my knees buckled. He eased me down to my knees and knelt beside me, supporting me until I regained my bearings. I trembled and pushed away from my guard’s supportive arms.   
  
“Please leave me.” My guard stayed beside me and I pushed on his chest with my forearm. His voice was unaffected by my closed off reaction to him.  
  
“I know you did not choose to feel this way but you must choose to stop it.” I turned my face away and kept pushing against him.   
  
“I don’t know if I can…” I began to say but my guard cut me off.

  
“You must!” He shook me slightly and I gathered my wits about me.

  
“I’ll try. But… he’s my friend; he’s loved me since I was a child and I him. You can’t ask me to turn all of that away, to separate it from what it’s become.”  
  
“I am not making a request of you. I am telling you what you must do!” His voice was harsh and insistent. I stayed quiet and let my arm drop to my lap. He was right. I must set my affection for Nicholas aside. Whatever the King makes us do, I must empty my heart of all of it. We are not partners in this, nor are we capable of changing the path we are forced to walk upon.   
  
**The 10th of March in the 17th year of the New Order under our Lord and King**  
  
  
I told myself I’d harden my heart, that I’d look upon him with indifference and cold unfeeling. It was all I thought about after my guard left me. Images and thoughts of Nicholas flitted around in my head constantly. Memories beat at my mind and I began to wonder if I had always cared for him so and yes, been in love with him, even when I was a little girl chasing after him and my brother as they ran to the river. I was so utterly incapable of anything other than love from then until the moment I saw him tonight. Though I knew the only reason he was present was for the entertainment of the King, my heart still beat for Nicholas when he was led to the dais below where I sat. I knew what we had to do, it had happened so many times before. I was already rising to my feet and dutifully untying the laces of my dress. Are we nothing more than trained animals now?   
  
I tried to fight what I felt for him. I tried. I failed. He watched me walk to him, shedding my clothing as I did. When I stood before him, he looked at me with such compassion and I couldn’t tear my eyes from his. For the first time since all of this had begun, I fully lost myself in our union. I wanted it. Our kisses were hungry and my need for his touch – insatiable. The people around us shrank away to nothing and I didn’t care if the King knew that I loved Nicholas. All I wanted was for Nicholas to know it. Dare I think that he already knew? He moved differently this time. With passion rather than caution, emotion rather than hesitance. I knew, like every other instance of our coupling, the King would wring out his climax into a thing of agony and wretched misery but all we saw was each other for a few, blessed moments. I, the lucky one, reached my peak and was unable to contain my pleasure with silence. I gripped Nicholas’s shoulders and let it all wash over me. The way he felt, the scent of his skin and sweat, the soft furs beneath my body and always, whenever I opened my eyes, his, staring into mine. They spoke what he could not say out loud. I could almost hear his voice speak the words.  
  
Perhaps the King knew too. Nicholas’ screams of pain were worse than I had ever heard them before. He fell onto his side, rolled away from me and vomited onto the stones. The King stood and approached us where we lay.  
  
“That was… particularly enthralling. I applaud your success in pleasing my queen. I hope you enjoyed your reward for such… _ardent_ attention.” He didn’t wait for Nicholas to be taken away or for me to get up and accompany Him. He simply left the throne room. When He was gone I turned onto my side and cradled Nicholas’ tense body with mine. He was soothed by my touch and I kissed the back of his shoulder once before my guard hurried over and drew me away. To my dismay, he brought me directly to the King. Upon seeing me at His door, the King grasped my neck in His hand, led me into His chamber, turned me around and pushed me face down against His bed so He could take me roughly from behind. He pulled my hair and squeezed my arm so tightly I cried out in pain. Afterward, He had me lay with Him in bed. I was compelled to give Him my attention as He stroked my skin and made me convince Him that whenever He touched me it was more pleasurable than when Nicholas touched me. It was all repulsive in truth, but I closed my eyes to hide from His inhuman gaze and attempted to cool His fiery contact with my body. He took me several times in the night, each time more tenderly than the last until I was unable to resist succumbing to what He did to my poor body. All the while, He breathed His terrible words of love and possession into my ears. In the end, His turquoise, feline eyes wild with jealous rage, He used the Apple on me until I screamed His given name repeatedly in the most painful pleasure until my voice left me. The King was satisfied and I was at last allowed to rest. It was a relief to fall into the darkness of sleep, for the King kept me trapped in His wicked embrace and spoke endless words of His devotion to me.  
  
**The 1st of June in the 17th year of the New Order under our Lord and King**  
  
The King kept me in His chambers every night for a full month until now. It was a more terrible punishment than being forced to publicly copulate with Nicholas for His pleasure. I dreaded the setting of the sun and the glow of His catlike eyes in the dark so close to me. I feel unholy and though my skin is clean when I look into the glass, it seems to be caked in the terrible filth of lies, misery and pretense. How can I not see it upon me? I reek of the King and I can no longer see myself underneath what He has made me. I know not who I am anymore, for I am no one. I am nothing.   
  
**The 29th of June in the 17th year of the New Order under our Lord and King**  
  
Fear is a terrible thing. But I have decided that I’d rather be afraid and free than a complacent prisoner.   
  
I woke last night to a hand upon my shoulder. To my great surprise, a hand was put over my mouth and it was a good thing, for when I saw that it was not my guard nor the King, I screamed. A soft whisper came from the shadow and I knew. I could smell the warm scent of sweat and flesh overwarmed by a humid summer night. I knew the odor of this man well for I had spent a lifetime yet no time at all with him. Nicholas.   
  
I sat up and grasped him tightly. Just as quickly, I panicked and drew back. I whispered in frantic fear to him.  
  
“What are you doing here? You must go! If you’re caught I can’t save you from His wrath! My guard will kill you!” I stopped when Nicholas softly shushed me.  
  
“Your guard will not catch us. But we must go. Quickly now, Lily, get a few things and we’ll run from here.”  
  
“The King will find us! Don’t you see? We can’t hide from Him!”  
  
“But we can run. Will you run with me?” I could see his eyes in the dark, dully reflecting the moon light from my narrow windows. Those windows were the spaces between the bars of my prison and I lost my senses then. Or perhaps I gained them. I jumped out of bed, grabbed my embroidered blue satin dressing gown and put on the heaviest winter slippers I owned. They weren’t much more protection for my feet than a scrap of silk but they were better than nothing. As I approached the door where Nicholas was standing I turned in a moment of clarity and retrieved this journal, my quill and an inkwell. Nicholas put them in a rough sack he carried. He took my hand and opened the door.   
  
The first thing I saw when Nicholas was clear of the door and I had passed behind him over the threshold, was a dark boot partly in our path. I followed the leg it was attached to and came eye to eye with my guard. He was slumped against the wall with his hands over his stomach. They shone with blood and his breathing was that of a man in agony. It was slow and labored – sparing – as if he only had moments left and he wanted every one to last as long as possible. I stifled a cry and let go of Nicholas’ hand even though he tried to keep hold of me to draw me away. At my guard’s side, I failed to withhold the tears that ran from my eyes. He shook his head and raised a bloodied hand towards me. I took it in my hands, held it to my chest and kissed his forehead as he had done to me so many times.   
  
“No, no. Not you, please.” I clutched his hand tighter to me and then reached to his face to smooth some of his hair away from his cheek. I heard Nicholas speak from the dark behind me.  
  
“Lily! I don’t understand you! He’s kept you prisoner here! Why do you care whether he lives or dies?” I realized then that Nicholas had no idea what my guard and I shared. He thought the King’s guards were all the same. Nameless, faceless entities that only did the King’s bidding. But this man was different. He was my father, my brother, my friend, my protector and my captor. He was everything to me. I couldn’t speak. My guard spoke for me, turning his eyes to Nicholas.  
  
“I do not feel the need for vengeance for what you have done because I understand why you had to take her…. but I cannot help either of you beyond right now.” My guard turned to me and caught me with his eyes. I wept openly for his injuries and pain. Nicholas crouched down beside me and I noticed the way his hand hovered over the hilt of a knife in his belt. He had done this! But he didn’t know! I turned my attention back to my guard when he said my name.  
  
“Lily…. Take my keys. There is a door beneath the stairs that leads to a storage room. In the south corner of the room there is a gate. Use my keys to open it. Follow the tunnel and it will lead you to another gate. Through that gate is your freedom. You must go now. Take the keys. I will report that your man took them by force and abducted you.” My guard grasped my hand and moved it to the ring of keys on his belt. I fumbled to unclasp them with blurred eyes and a racing heart.   
  
“Come with us!” I cried. My guard only shook his head.   
  
“I cannot. I can only do this. You deserve happiness, child, and I see now how blinded I was. I do not know why I could not see before, but it is too late for me now. Go!” His words commanded my heart and broke it at the same time. I kissed his forehead, damp by then with sweat, and then his lips, softly, so I could feel his breath on my face. As I stood, I let his hand fall from mine and he settled it once again over the seeping wounds in his chest and abdomen. Nicholas stayed crouched in front of him and the two men leveled their gaze at each other. My guard nodded slightly to Nicholas and Nicholas determinedly nodded in return. A thousand words and meanings passed between then like lightning and I read respect, apology and most powerfully, love for me. It was a passing of the torch and my guard sighed as if in relief and closed his eyes. Nicholas stood solemnly and then took my hand once again.   
  
As we turned away to descend the stairs, my guard spoke softly to us, as if he were dreaming.  
  
“Keep her safe, boy. You must not let Him find you. Do not disappoint me… or Lily.”   
  
I wept silently as we ran. The keys dug into my hand and stomach, for I gripped them tightly against my body so they wouldn’t make noise. I knew the area of the Palace better than Nicholas so I took the lead until we found the door. Once we were through, Nicholas once again positioned himself in front of me as a protective barrier with his knife clutched in his fist.   
  
When we stood at last at the final gate, my hands shook as I fitted each key until the right one turned in the lock. The night air was balmy and blue. Moonlight shone upon dewy grass and my first step upon the soft green carpet of the earth was foreign and frightening. I’d had nothing but solid stone beneath my feet for nearly three years. The wonder of it was so overwhelming that I left the ring of keys dangling in the lock. We didn’t need them anymore. I began to think of my guard, the man who had given up everything for me. I’d never learned his name.  
  
But then we ran. The tree line seemed so far away from us and hardly crept closer. The once soothing night air began to burn in my chest. Every breath was ragged and agonizing. Nicholas pulled me up when I stumbled but by then we were so close to the cover of shadowy forest that I forced my shaky legs to keep going. Nicholas kept me running for a while even when we were within the trees and at last, when he stopped, I fell to my knees and nearly fainted from the exertion. We were both dripping with sweat and I coughed and came close to vomiting. Nicholas held me as I heaved in his arms and when I at last caught my breath, he helped me to my feet and urged me to keep going. I held fast to his hand and clasped my dressing gown over my chest as I hurried behind him, not even noticing the sharpness of twigs and acorns beneath my feet. Every sound in the night made my heart jump in terror and Nicholas brandished the knife in his other hand as he led me farther into the forest.   
  
We spent the night alternately running and walking. Every step took us away from one danger and closer to another. When daylight began to break in the East, we found shelter in a rocky crevice. I slept cradled in Nicholas’s arms until mid day and then began to write this entry while Nicholas retrieved water from a nearby creek. We shared some bread and fruit that he stole from the Palace kitchens. Nicholas is unwilling to travel by day but I can clearly see his fear of staying put. We heard dogs barking in the distance. The King is surely looking for us by now. Nicholas says he is taking me south. He knows The Wall runs closest to the Palace in the south and he said he wants to try to get past it. The concept terrifies me. But if we can make it that far, perhaps we can survive the impossible feat of getting past The Wall even though it is said that since its completion, no man has ever come within twenty paces of it without taking his own life.


	11. Chapter 11

**The 30th of June in the 17th year of the New Order under our Lord and King**  
  
Nicholas stole a horse from an unwary Palace watchman. I had to turn my back and hide my face as he crept over to the sleeping man and slit his throat. But how could I argue when I knew the man would reveal our direction? We hid the body in a dense thicket, took his things and rode all night. I was grateful for it, for my body hadn’t known such lingering, aching pain in some time. While we rode, we spoke of many topics: our childhood reminiscences, the burdens we bore individually and our familial losses, our time spent in the Palace. I wanted to know how Nicholas managed to escape his cell.  
  
“It was by chance alone. I saw that my door hadn’t been locked because the guards were distracted by a new prisoner who was fighting his escort. I was too nervous to feel tired but I feigned sleeping. When the night was quiet I opened my door silently and escaped. None of the other prisoners were awake but I knew this would be my one chance. I was fortunate, really. I knew where most things were in the Palace so I stole a bag, food and this knife from the kitchens and then I made my way to you. I had a few near misses with other guards but the only one I had to fight was yours. I’m sorry, Lily. I truly am.”  
  
My heart constricted at his words but I forced myself to speak about my guard to him. Nicholas was quiet for a long time after he learned of the love my guard had for me and the way he had cared for me. I dare say that if I could see his face, he may have been weeping but he didn’t give voice to his sorrow. When he did at last utter any words, his voice was tight and gravelly with grief.   
  
“I’m so terribly sorry for taking him from you, Lily. I had no idea…. I… You must hate me for it.” He shook his head sadly. I tightened my arms around his waist, pressed my face against his back and thought about my loyal guard. He had been different when we spoke those final dreadful words to each other. Of course, he was suffering and in pain from the wounds of his defeat but there was something else. It was as if thick scales had been lifted from his eyes and he saw everything clearly for the first time. The pain that showed in them was not all that of the physical body – it was almost as if he were desperate to make amends for some wrongdoing. One mighty act of good in an attempt to stave off an eternity of damnation. Perhaps seeing his own mortality near at hand freed him from the King’s power in his last moments.  
  
I sighed and turned so my cheek was against Nicholas, freeing my mouth to speak.  
  
“I don’t hate you. You were trying to save me the only way you knew how. He loved me as a father and to him, you taking me away was the only way for me to be free… even if it meant his death.” I could feel Nicholas’s stiff muscles shift under my face.  
  
“You give me much undeserved credit.”   
  
“On the contrary, Nicholas! If we die for our actions it will be with the knowledge that you defied madness… that you overcame impossible odds when I had long ago given up. Isn’t that worth some praise?”   
  
“Only if we can truly escape, Lily. Only then.” I shuddered at his words. He was right. We were not truly free. If I dared dream that we could get beyond The Wall, what then?   
  
Shortly before dawn we came upon a decrepit homestead. It had long since been abandoned and we sought shelter within its green, lichen covered walls. Nicholas was overcome by the exhaustion of being ever vigilant and I lay beside him in a warm ray of the sunrise and watched the growing light illuminate his features as he slept.   
  
My mind was restless from our conversation in the night and despite my physical tiredness I couldn’t sleep. Leaving Nicholas alone, I went outside the broken door and lowered an old, leaky bucket into a nearby well. The water was cold and tasted earthy and pure. I drank of it and then filled an ancient stone trough with enough water to wash my clothes. At first, I hesitated to undress in the out of doors, but I quickly realized there probably wasn’t another person within screaming distance of our location. I stripped bare and scrubbed my clothes as best I could, laid them in the sun to dry and then bathed my aching body. The cold water soothed my muscles and I was soon refreshed. With that refreshment brought a keen and cutting exhaustion so I found a soft place beneath a leafy tree that offered some warm, dappled rays of sunlight to lie down in. I must have drifted off, for I woke with a start from the sound of Nicholas’ laugh.   
  
The sun was high above, perhaps just past noon. I sat up and reflexively covered my nudity from Nicholas’ sight, as if he hadn’t seen me unclothed before. He stood several paces away by the well, facing my direction and shading his eyes.   
  
“What a capitol idea, Lily!” Nicholas laughed again and used a bucket full water to splash out the used water in the trough and refill it. He quickly undressed and submerged his clothes in the trough. He, too, washed his body and then, instead of joining me under my tree, laid out in the sun, unabashedly naked. I quietly got up and put on my night dress, which was still slightly damp. I turned my dressing gown over to continue drying and sat down beside Nicholas in the sun, near his shoulder. He shaded his eyes and looked up at me. For just one second, the fear of what we had left behind us, but by no means escaped, receded from my mind and I was taken back to when we were young.  
  
Eddie and Nicholas often wandered in the fields and woods surrounding our families’ homes and took naps in the grass when it struck their fancy. I couldn’t count how many times I’d come upon them, tanning in the sun with their shirts off and lazily idling away the day when they should have been working. I would run from them as they chased me, threatening to throw me in the river if I told on them. Sitting beside Nicholas and looking down at him, it was so like those carefree days of our youth, that moment between when they would wake and when they would jump to their feet to chase me as I ran, screaming and laughing.   
  
This time there was no excitement or any threat to dunk me in a river. I looked down into Nicholas’ eyes and wished with all my heart that life was as simple now as it was then. Now, Nicholas’s body is scarred and broken. My heart and mind are just the same. I reached down and brushed a lock of his damp hair off his forehead and ran my finger lightly over the ragged scar on his face from where it started at the corner of his mouth and followed it all the way down his neck, shoulder and chest, over the place where his nipple used to be and where the raised scar tapered and ended at the bottom of his chest muscles.   
  
“I’m sorry for what happened to you at The Wall. All of this world…. It’s not…. It’s not right.” I said softly. Nicholas took my hand and placed it on the center of his chest.   
  
“I know. But I’m trying to get you away. I want to take you someplace where you can be free and happy.” His words cut a hole in me, for I couldn’t allow myself to hope. I sighed and shifted down until I could lay beside him in the grass and rest my head on his shoulder. Nicholas stroked my arm and kissed my head. The sun grew hotter and I got my dressing gown and went inside the mossy, log homestead to find some shade. We ate a little and spoke less when Nicholas eventually came inside as well, dressed again in his cleaner clothes.   
  
There is sadness we both carry for an uncountable number of reasons. A hopeless hope. The terrible burden of fear. We’ve agreed to not wait until full night fall to keep going.   
  
**The 2nd of July in the 17th year of the New Order ~~under our Lord and King~~**

  
I’m weary in my bones. Yesterday I couldn’t write at all. I fell asleep almost as soon as we dismounted and slept through most of the day until I was woken by hunger. I wish to write down everything we experience in our travels but we are running scared and that takes much of what energy I have left and I must conserve what I can because I know it won’t get easier. Nicholas and I talk but much of the time we ride in silence, lost in our own ruminations. It’s a comfortable silence. Much can be said in such a vast absence of words and I have begun to notice the way Nicholas will touch my hand or shift backwards to feel me against him. It’s almost as if he is making sure I’m there, real, alive, and still clinging desperately to our one thread of hope.  
  
**The 3rd of July in the 17th year of the New Order**  
  
I’ve decided to stop referring to Him as King and Lord. If we’re caught, my life is forfeit so I might as well speak my mind in truth. If we are indeed caught, our bodies will probably be destroyed and this journal with it so there is no sense to fabrication and bending of the knee now. He is nothing but a crazed, maniacal man and everyone under His rule is a servant to His insanity. I will not be ruled by Him.   
  
We were attacked this morning as we attempted to pass through a small village before stopping. The people lived in the dirt and wore rags upon their bodies. Even in my simple dressing gown, I stood out to them. We are both fat, healthy and dressed as royalty compared to their frail bodies and threadbare clothing. In their frenzied state, starving, they shot our horse and swarmed upon it. We barely managed to run from them and Nicholas took a frightful slash to his arm from one of them before we could escape. The people, hardly people at all but animals, tore the poor horse to bits in their desperation for fresh meat.   
  
My heart aches for their plight. I fear the farther we go from the Palace, the more we will see of this suffering.  
  
Now that we are on foot again, our progress has slowed. After what happened this morning, we’re more sure than ever that we must only travel during the night time hours to avoid people. Yet, I fear we cannot hide no matter what precautions we take. Even here in the woods, I feel… eyes on me. It’s a creeping chill along my spine and the inside of my head. Nicholas doesn’t feel it as acutely as I do but he still has an uneasy sensation that makes him restless. I can’t help but think it’s the King… no… not King. Him. Searching for me.   
  
**The 4th of July in the 17th year of the New Order**  
  
We’ve found ourselves on the shore of a small lake. An old camp used to be here and we cobbled together a small shelter of sticks and some decaying sail cloth. It stinks of mold and earth but in the hot, summery sun it has dried out and become less noisome. On a whim, I thought back to some of my earliest memories. It crossed my mind that before ~~the King~~ He took over… time was counted differently. Years were marked without reference to the ruling of a mad man. If I remember correctly, I was born in the year 1780. I’ll be twenty and two in December of this year. Nicholas and I sat side by side and wrote figures in the sand with a stick to count the passing of time. In what we have deciphered by the old accounting, the year is 1802. Nicholas says he will be thirty in the fall of this year. My brother would have been thirty and two now, had he survived The Wall.   
  
I’ve wasted three years of my life as a prisoner to ~~the King~~ Him. Why is it so difficult for me to break free of calling Him that? He is no King! He is a torturer, a mad man, a merciless dictator! He’s cruelly imprisoned the minds and hearts of the people here and crushed them into the terrible mold of suffering He’s created. It has to have something to do with that powerful thing He wields.  
  
Thinking about the man who held me prisoner for so long made me feel filthy and covered in His sulfurous reek once more so I left Nicholas and discarded my clothing to swim in the lake. Its water was frigid and rather unpleasant but I didn’t care. I lay in the shallows and allowed the water to cover my body and then my face. I dug my fingers into the silt and weeds on the bottom and tried to pull myself deeper. In something like an echo of one of many miserable experiences in the Palace, I felt my arm being grasped and my body lifted up from the chilling depths of the lake. It was Nicholas. He fell to his knees and clasped me tightly to his chest.

“Lily! I thought you were trying to…. Please tell me you weren’t!” I shook my head against his shoulder and clutched his shirt. He knelt in the water and held me with such fierce intensity I thought I might be dreaming. I was overwhelmed by his love and it was so vastly unlike what ~~the King~~ He had done to me that I began to shake and cry in his arms. Nicholas kept me alive, not for his own benefit, but because he wanted so desperately for me to find my own life and be happy, even if he couldn’t be there to share it with me. But the fear of never reaching that goal made me senseless with dread. I was a woman without faith and Nicholas had the burden of carrying enough of it for both of us. I would never succeed without him. For all my rebellious thoughts and words I’ve filled this small book with, my inaction and ultimate submission to Him has and will continue to reveal my weakness. I cried out when my pain became too great.  
  
“He’ll find us! Oh, Nicholas! I know it! I can feel Him searching. Every minute that passes I feel it more and I want to tear my skin from my body if I thought it would make it stop!”  
  
“I know, Lily. I feel it as well.” Nicholas drew back as he spoke and looked into my eyes. I shuddered and tightened my fists in the fabric of his shirt. Something dreadful took possession of me then and I became very still. Nicholas felt the change in my body and his brows furrowed slightly with concern.   
  
“I just want to feel something else, anything else, even if it’s the most terrible pain. But nothing lets me forget that He’s _hunting_ us!” At my words, Nicholas shook his head.   
  
“No. Not pain.” He whispered. He kissed me then, the lightest of touches to my forehead. He drew back only enough to stroke his fingers along my wet hairline and whisper again.

  
“Never should there be pain for you anymore. Not if I can have an influence.” We kissed truly then, and I felt as if the world and all its fear and hate were merely as inconsequential as the grains of sand beneath my body. We rose together, and made our way to our little shelter. I spread my dressing gown upon the sand as Nicholas shed his wet clothing. It was the most natural thing in the world for him to come to me then, taking me into his arms, kissing and touching me everywhere. We found each other all over again, as if for the first time. It was more meaningful than even the last time in the Palace, for this joining was purely of our own volition.   
  
Everything was slow and trance-like, a savoring of the flesh in a way we had never been able to experience before. Sensations built in me slowly, burning and rising, blossoming into a climax that left me gasping, crying out and digging my toes into the sand beyond my satin robe beneath us. Nicholas continued to move slowly in me and I opened my eyes to find him near his own peak but tense with what was no doubt the terrible anticipation of agony. I took his face in my hands and made him look at me.  
  
“It won’t hurt this time. It’s only us here.” I lifted my hips and moved my hands to his arms to pull him deeper. He lowered his face to my chest and sighed between my breasts. Trusting me, he kissed my body and began to move with more purpose. I helped him find his pleasure in me and when it took him over he gasped out loudly once and then succumbed to it fully. There was no screaming. No pain. Only his lusty exhalations as he released all of himself into me. When it was over he held me against him and caught his breath. He kissed me sweetly and settled us into a comfortable position with my head cradled on his shoulder.   
  
“This is how it always should have been for us.” He breathed into my ear. I nodded and understood the greater meaning of his words. Under different circumstances, we might have had a far nobler purpose than what the King had made us do at His behest. If Nicholas hadn’t been made to leave and work on The Wall, we would have continued to grow up together… and grown to love each other.   
  
We slept rather peacefully for some time after but now I must stop writing and ready myself to leave so we can continue our journey. The crawling feeling of eyes watching, searching, never left us, though we were able to block it out during our moments of passion. It seems stronger still, and so we must continue to run from it. But wherever our flight takes us, at least I know I don’t have to do it alone.


	12. Chapter 12

**The 5th of July in the 17th Year of the New Order**  
  
We cannot speak of it anymore, this feeling in our bodies and minds. I know a net is closing upon us, for I feel as if there is a web on my skin that grows tighter and tighter with every passing second. Sometimes it makes me gasp, for I can almost see His eyes turn towards me and dig into my consciousness. Today I kept pulling Nicholas by the hand long past sunrise. I didn’t want to stop and rest even though my legs felt ready to give out. My slippers had finally fallen apart near noon so I flung them under a bush and continued barefoot until Nicholas gripped my hand and nearly shouted at me to stop. He must have seen the panic that now fills me to overflowing, for he took me into his arms and hugged me until I saw the folly of trying to continue on in such a state. We slept right there on the floor of the forest where we stopped. When we woke, Nicholas took off his tattered waist coat and used his knife to cut it in half, top from bottom. He wrapped the two halves around my feet and, with the help of some bits of twine we had gotten from the watchman’s things, used the existing buttons to keep them on tightly.   
  
Even with the rations we took from the watchman, our food is nearly gone. We both look for cattails and nettles wherever they chance to grow and collect them to stretch our meals. Nicholas always has an eye out for any small animals he could hunt but he’s wary about starting any kind of fire. I’d rather starve than send a smoke signal that would lead Him straight to us!  
  
I’m so very afraid. I feel that He is nearby, hiding behind the next tree or beyond the next hill. Or perhaps He is right on our heels and if I were to just turn and look behind me He would leap out and strike us both down where we stand. It feels like my body is in deep water, being pulled backwards no matter how hard I try to get away.   
  
Nicholas is reluctantly agreeable to continuing onward now that the sun has just started to set. I must be ready to go.  
  
**The 10th of July in the 17th Year of the New Order**  
  
My room in the Palace is unchanged. It seems as if I have been away for ages yet not at all. Yes, dear reader, if indeed anyone will see this journal once I’m dead…. I am a prisoner once again.   
  
It happened on the 6th, when we had been running for a week. Every passing second had brought more and more dread to our minds and hearts. He was close and we knew it yet still we tried to run. It was nearly morning and we were looking for a sheltered place to hide, for it had begun to rain. I heard the sound of a horse and we both turned at once to see two of His guards bearing down on us at a full gallop. Nicholas grabbed the bag from off of his shoulder, shoved it into my hands and pushed me towards a denser thicket of trees where the horses would have a hard time navigating.  
“Run! Lily, RUN!” He shouted. I stumbled away and clutched the cloth bag with our meager supplies in it to my chest, trying my hardest to run as fast as I could. A stone headed tomahawk hit a tree beside me and I nearly fell as I dodged in a different direction. Then I heard it. The sound of His voice as He shouted something angrily. I heard Nicholas curse in defiance and then scream in pain. I didn’t dare turn to see what fate had befallen the man. If he was dead, there was nothing I could do about it. The sound of hoof beats was close and I wept as I turned my body to slip between a narrow gap between trees of the copse I’d managed to reach by some miracle. In that instant, I saw Him. He was so close I could see the way the shaggy fur and eagle feathers on His wolf hood moved with the motion of His body on the giant black and white Percheron draft horse He rode. I continued to run, dodging between the trees and pushing through evergreens that slapped my face and scratched my skin. I broke free of the copse and faced a terrifying expanse of open forest. My legs were ready to give out and I chanced to look behind me. He was on foot chasing me and, in fact, gaining rapidly on me! He must have leapt off His horse and given chase as soon as I got into the copse. Terror gave flight to my legs even as I felt my knees wanting to buckle from exhaustion.   
  
All at once, I was both crushed in the horrifying strength of His arms and taken down to the ground. I screamed as He twisted His body and took the force of our fall on His shoulder and then rolled onto His back. Momentum carried us back over so I was beneath Him and I thrashed in His strong, frightful embrace. The smell of His body was in my nose and all around me; His skin and His hair and that burning stench of perpetual scorch. The fiery hotness of His flesh combined with my own overheated state from exerting myself so vigorously was overwhelming. I kicked and writhed but He held me fast.  
  
“Lily, you are safe now. You do not have to run from him any longer. I will take you home where you belong. With me.” His words made me ill. I fought until I became too exhausted to continue. All the while, He made soothing noises and kept His grip on me. He held me in front of Him as we walked back to His horse. I tried to get away many times but He would merely lift me up so my legs became useless. To get on His horse, He held my wrist tightly and mounted, staying low to the animal’s neck to maintain a grip on me even as I pulled and jerked against Him. Once He was seated, He simply lifted me by my arm as He sat up and used His other hand to drag my hips onto the saddle in front of Him. When He took the reins in His hand, I managed to lurch over onto my stomach with my bag of things uncomfortably stuffed beneath my body. I realized my mistake too late. I was completely trapped that way and He held one of my wrists easily behind my back to keep me in place. The poor horse received many unintentional kicks from me as I tried uselessly to wriggle free.  
  
It didn’t take long to return to the place where I had run from Nicholas. On the way, He paused to wrench the tomahawk that had nearly hit me from the tree it was embedded in. The two other guards had Nicholas pinned on his back with a foot on each of his shoulders and there was an arrow protruding from his thigh. He was alive though! I was carried right past where he lay and we briefly met each other’s eyes before He spoke.   
  
“You have stolen my queen. What have you to say for yourself?” His voice was low and smooth yet frightening for its calmness. Nicholas struggled and winced but defiantly shouted up at Him.  
  
“You don’t deserve her!” I couldn’t see His response to Nicholas because of my position but I heard the considering sound He made.   
  
“Perhaps not, but if I do not deserve her, who does? You? I think not.” He directed His attention the two guards. I recognized them both. One was a lean man I’d seen throughout the years I’d been imprisoned. He was dutiful and quiet but his uniquely pale eyes missed nothing. The other man’s presence made my heart sink. It was the large man who had on more than one occasion exchanged challenging words with my personal guard and held an open hatred for me. He bore a black hand print on his face and I had no doubt that he would enjoy hurting me if given the opportunity. He was clearly enjoying hurting Nicholas, for he cruelly dug his heel into Nicholas’ deformed right shoulder and put more of his weight onto it.  
  
I squirmed on the horse as Nicholas cringed under the man’s weight and couldn't help but cry out when I heard something in his shoulder snap. Nicholas screamed in pain and the man who had inflicted the injury smiled. He smiled! It faded when the stone tomahawk He had retrieved landed beside him on the ground, followed by a rebuke from Him.  
  
“You lack restraint, Teiowi:sonte. You could learn much from your brother here.” I felt Him shift on the saddle and His tone changed.   
  
“Retrieve my arrow.” The other guard restraining Nicholas, evidently the brother to the monstrous man who had tried to kill me with the weapon that now lay at his feet, immediately crouched and drew a knife from his belt. He raised it up in his fist and brought it down quickly, sinking it deep into Nicholas’ thigh next to the arrow. I wept in horror as he sawed at the flesh of Nicholas’ leg and then ripped the arrow out of the gaping wound he’d created. Blood gushed everywhere. Nicholas’s screams were chilling to hear but when it was over he managed a temporary stoic silence that made my heart break for him. It didn’t last, for as my captor urged His horse to begin cantering away, He had one last command.  
  
“Do not kill him.” I watched as the two guards began to beat Nicholas. Even after he was out of sight in the trees, I could still hear his suffering.   
  
My King once again, He stroked my back as I shook and sobbed.   
  
“Ssshhh Lily. Ssshhh. It is over. He cannot harm you anymore. I have you now. I will keep you safe forever. Forever.” I lay in wretched silence eventually. Everything had drained from me. My hair hung down well past my face and I watched it sway in my vision. It was stuck together and knotted from my sweat, tears, the day’s earlier rain and my fruitless struggling. The verdant green of the grassy forest floor became my new focus. Locusts were singing their rasping songs in the wet heat of the hazy summer day and the buzzing filled my head. Perhaps it was my own brain creating such a racket, for it seemed to make my entire body vibrate painfully. My right arm dangled down before me and I reached out to touch the long, damp grass below me but the horse was too tall so I let it hang freely. My wrist bumped against the toes of the King’s leather moccasin with a trance-like regularity provided by the horse’s steady, ground covering gait. After a while, the King stopped His horse and lifted me up so I was sitting sideways in front of Him once again. I slumped like a half empty sack of barley, defeated. The King pulled me against His chest and cradled me gently. I looped the straps of the bag Nicholas had given to me around my forearm and didn’t react as the King kissed my head softly before urging His mount to continue. As we rode on and on, He occasionally murmured His twisted reassurances of safety to me. The eagle feather in my view swung from His chest and swatted His arm with the breeze created by our movement. I watched it until my vision blurred yet I couldn’t look away.  
  
I must have drifted off from fatigue, for I woke as I was being lifted off of the horse and supported against the King’s massive chest and shoulder. I didn’t struggle until I saw where we were. It was the village where Nicholas and I had been attacked and lost the horse three days prior. The carcass was only a couple large bones with barely any stringy entrails left to rot in the sun. The starving villagers’ bodies lay strewn about the square, scattered like rubbish. It had been a slaughter and I had no doubt that it was the work of the King and His men. Weakly, I tried to get away again. I screamed and fought but the King had me fast. He carried me towards one of the nearby dwellings and the horse followed behind despite my noise. A deliberate kick knocked the door open and the King lay me on the straw bed that took up an entire side of the small, single room inside. This had been someone’s home once! Bile rose up in my throat and I tried not to retch, knowing that the former occupant most likely lay dead in the dirt outside somewhere.   
  
The King held me down and shushed me softly, murmuring His empty platitudes. I clawed at His hands, screamed and even spit at Him in desperation. In a fraction of a second, the expression on His tattooed face changed from concerned, caring lover to raging, vengeful demon. The change was instant and terrifying. His eyes glowed brightly and His hands tightened painfully on my upper arms until He held me down completely.  
  
“Quiet! Be still! You vex me and spurn my love! You will stop immediately.” His voice was harsh and gravelly with anger. I obeyed Him and He changed again.   
  
“There. My beautiful queen… Returned to me at last. How I missed you!” He leaned close and let go of my arms so He could rest His weight on one hand and stroke my face with the other. He kissed me and His hand wandered downward to fondle my body. I didn’t fight Him for fear of His unstable mental state. He took me there, in a dead man’s bed, and I stared at the setting sun outside the rippled glass of the building’s window.   
  
That was an endless evening spent in His presence. I refused to eat the food He presented me but He forced me to drink a bitter tea. It made me sleepy and disoriented. At least it helped me endure the night easier, for I was too confused to resist Him when He undressed me completely and took me back to the bed.   
  
I woke in the dark morning, sweating from how hot His naked body was against mine. I heard the other two men outside. They spoke in their language so I couldn’t understand them but I knew they spoke to Nicholas when one of them raised his voice and switched to English.  
  
“Wake up, dog.” A muffled groan told me he still lived. The King woke at the louder words and pulled me tightly against His body. He caressed me and whispered to me.   
  
“My love… It pleases me to hold you close.” I wanted to stab Him with anything I could get my hands on to make it clear I shared nothing of His sentiments. It was all I could do to endure it when He took me for a third time in that bed. Unlike the first two times, He used the apple to make me cry out. Perhaps He wanted Nicholas to know that He was taking His pleasure from me while he lay in agony, broken and bruised, in the dirt outside.   
  
It was worse than I’d imagined. The King allowed me to dress, aside from the coverings Nicholas had made for my feet. I walked barefoot out of the house in front of the King. He kept a heavy hand on my shoulder and guided me over to where Nicholas lay. I barely recognized him. His face was distended and bruised purple. His eyes were swollen closed and the arm the hateful guard had stepped on and broken was bent unnaturally mid way between his shoulder and elbow. Blood stained his face, neck and all the way down his shirt and it was clear he had been forced to walk at least part of the way to this place after his beating. That horrible man, Teiowi:sonte, yanked on a rope tied around Nicholas’ neck and dragged him to his feet. I wept openly for his extreme suffering. Somehow he got up, cradling his destroyed arm with his good hand. His leg had been left untreated and more blood seeped from it. I could see the muscles inside the enormous gash moving as he tried to balance on his other leg.  
  
“Please… let me help him!” I begged, weeping. The King tightened His hand on my shoulder and pulled me back against His chest.   
  
“You will not help him. Come. We will be home tomorrow if we leave now.” He pulled me away and put me on His horse. Jumping up behind me, he urged the horse to a near gallop and left Nicholas once again to the merciless care of the two other men.   
  
As I had once done so long ago to a much kinder man, I took advantage of when the King did not have a hand on me and leapt off the horse. It was late in the day and the King had kept His horse at a steady lope for much of it but when I didn’t fight Him, He let His guard down. It was during one of the many times the King had allowed the horse to slow to a walk for a rest that I took advantage of His laxity. He shouted in rage and I ran as fast as I could down a steep embankment that would be too dangerous for the horse to travel with any haste. Part way down I slipped and ended up tumbling the rest of the way. I landed in a shallow creek at the bottom but, with nothing worse than a few scratches, I jumped up and continued to run. I heard the King splashing through the creek behind me just a few moments later. He roared my name but I didn’t dare slow.   
  
I ran on and on, ignoring the pain in my unprotected feet as I traversed over sharp sticks, acorns and pebbles that littered the forest floor. The trees thinned out and I was part way across a grass filled clearing, sobbing for breath with my burning lungs, when my legs gave out. I saw the King loping behind me. He seemed barely taxed and looked as if He could carry on in that fashion for miles. I got to my feet and stumbled on until I collapsed a second time. The King slowed to a walk as I struggled to get up and keep going. He walked up beside me in silence when I fell to my hands and knees to crawl. At last I gave up and fell onto my stomach, heaving. The King crouched down and watched me calmly with His head tilted slightly as I rolled onto my back, coughing and wheezing.   
  
“You are frightened…” The King said softly. His tone was strange and I turned my head to look at Him. I couldn’t discern whether it was a question or a statement. Either way, I nodded in the affirmative. He reached toward me and I shrieked, knocking His hand away. A snarl that was almost animal-like came from Him and in an instant, He was straddling me. I curled myself up, shielding my face and waiting for a blow that never came.   
  
I dared to peek at Him from beneath my hands and He was so close that the ends of His wolf hood touched the ground on either side of my face.   
  
“My beautiful flower… my love… You do not need to be afraid. I have rescued you. You will be safe at home soon.” He took my face in His hands and I gripped His wrists and tried to push Him away. There was a terrible contradiction between the words He spoke and the absolute rage in His eyes. My resistance was useless. He kissed my forehead and my mouth as I struggled against His steely grip. Between kisses, He frightened me further.  
  
“I know you did not mean to run away, my lovely wife. That criminal tricked you. He stole you. But I will protect you from him.” His voice rose up and turned into a guttural oath.  
  
“I will help you forget what he did to you.” Tears leaked from my eyes but He caressed them away with His thumbs. It was too much for me and I tipped my head back and screamed.  
  
“I left willingly! I left _you_! You’ve broken this land and the people in it - and you’ve broken _me_! You take and take! That’s all you know! I hate you! I want to die whenever you touch me. I’ve never loved you and no matter what you do, I never will. You’ll keep trying to convince yourself otherwise … but I’ll never, ever love you!” I’d ceased caring and I let it all out of me, screaming the entire time. The King’s eyes blazed and His breathing became rapid with fury. He held my arms against the ground on either side of my head and His hands gripped my wrists painfully.   
  
We spent a long moment with our eyes locked together, a stationary battle between the common and uncanny. The King smiled at me and I blinked in astonishment.   
  
“Oh, Lily. You are incredibly confused. I can do nothing but forgive you when you have been so misled.” He pulled me up and then lifted me against His shoulder. I fought and struggled but it got me nothing but a pain in my side and even deeper exhaustion than I’d already acquired from attempting to escape.   
  
I refused to eat more than a few morsels that night, for it all made me retch but I drank deeply of the King’s water supply, which He’d refilled at the creek we’d crossed earlier. He never let me farther away than arm’s length and preferred to keep me sitting between His knees with one of His arms around me. I choked down more of His bitter, poisoned tea when He held the cup to my lips and silently endured His endless need to use my body for pleasure, once in the night and again in the morning. His stamina was bottomless. Inhuman.

As He had promised, we galloped through the Palace gates before noon time. At a gesture from the King, I was lifted down from the horse by one of the guards and escorted directly to my room.   
  
Here I sit. Wife, queen, prisoner, slave.


	13. Chapter 13

**The 10th – 11th of July in the 17th Year of the New Order  
**  
I cannot sleep. The old woman was brought to me after I wrote earlier and she bathed me thoroughly in her usual silence but she was angry with me. There was a sadness in her eyes as well and I couldn’t look at her because I knew it was about my guard. I had seen no sign of him since my return. When she entered, it was a different man dressed in black who stood at my door to admit her. He is dead. I know it. My heart breaks over and over and I weep for him. He stood in for my actual father I’d lost so long ago, back when he left for the Wall and years before he actually died and it hurts to remember how much he cared for me. He betrayed his friend and his King to give me a chance to get away and now he is gone.  
  
The old woman dressed me in lavish silks. She looped my hair into an elaborate, braided updo and draped me in more jewelry than I’d ever seen in my life. I was then escorted by my new guard. He was younger than my beloved other guard by a few years and he had a sternness to his features that made me feel childish. I followed in his wake quietly, holding my flowing skirts up so I wouldn’t trip on them. I didn’t know why I had been dressed in such a gaudy way but I knew where we were headed. The throne room. My stomach was tense with terror. No doubt the King would be waiting for me.  
  
He was. It was late and there were no petitioners left, if there had been any at all. I was led to stand before the King, as if I myself were a petitioner once again. Somehow I remained standing despite my racing heart and the increasing dizziness that threatened to make me faint. He was slouched in His throne and He had His head resting in His hand. He didn’t wear His wolf hood and I could see every feature on His face clearly with just the ambient torch light. He tilted His head, looked up at me and sighed. His blue eyes glowed in the semidarkness.  
  
Gone were the urgent words of rescue and being my savior. In their place was disappointment and angry determination. Had He truly believed what He had said when He was taking me back here? He seemed a different man altogether. He got up and I found myself wanting to step backwards but I stood rooted firmly in place. He was so close that I could feel the heat emanating from Him without Him even touching me. He slowly raised His hand; my crown was in it and He placed it on my head. After it was settled, he rested His hands on my waist. In just a few steps, He turned us around as if we were dancing but then He sat me down in His throne. It was still warm from His body and I gripped the arm rests in fear. The King stepped to the side and stood next to the throne with His hand on my shoulder. His hand gripped it tightly and I sat rigidly in a place I had no business sitting.  
  
At a gesture from the King towards the doors at the bottom of the stairs, the guards there opened them. In walked the two men who had accompanied the King in His so called rescue of me. They were escorting Nicholas with a rope around his neck. He limped slowly, clutching his broken arm and I gasped and tried to stand. The King turned to look at me and forcibly sat me back down with His hand on my shoulder. The men dragged Nicholas all the way to the top dais and I couldn’t stop crying. The King’s fingers dug into my shoulder like pincers and I reached up with one hand to pull at His wrist but He wouldn’t stop. The guards knocked Nicholas down and he fell onto his one good hand. The other arm flopped uselessly about and he collapsed completely with a groan. The King spoke from where He stood.  
  
“Look upon your Queen, peasant.” Nicholas shakily looked up at me through his disheveled, filthy hair. He was unrecognizable from all the dirt and bruises on his face and body. The King continued.  
  
“You will never touch her again.” He nodded at the two guards and the one with the hand print reached down and hauled Nicholas up by his broken arm. Nicholas howled in pain and I screamed and reached out toward him but the King held me back against the throne with His hand against my chest. Nicholas was dragged away between the two guards with his feet stuttering down the stairs and his groans and outcries echoing in the large, open chamber. I covered my face and wept into my hands. The King crouched down in front of me, as if He were the supplicant and I the judge. He took my wrists in His hands and stared up into my face.  
  
“It will all be over soon, Lily. Very soon. I wish it did not have to be this way.” His expression became openly saddened for a moment but then smoothed over to nothing. He stood up and drew me up with Him. For a long while He held me in His arms but I refused to embrace Him. My hands hung by my sides and I hated every moment that my cheek was against the King’s painfully hot chest.  
  
Instead of taking me to His chambers as I had expected, the King dismissed everyone and personally escorted me to mine. He took the crown from my head and the jewels that adorned me and placed them all on the mantle above my fireplace. He undressed me slowly and I refused to look at Him. I kept my gaze fixed on the windows until He took my head in His hands and turned it towards Him. He kissed me softly and picked me up. He carried me to my bed and laid me down, as if He actually loved me. I didn’t bother fighting Him, for He was too strong. As had happened so many times before, His persistent mouth and knowing hands found a way to bring me to a reluctant peak. He didn’t need to use the Apple on me; He knew how to affect me without His powerful toy. As He touched me and consumed all of my body for what seemed like hours, He whispered to me.  
  
“My beautiful Lily. So perfect. All is forgiven, my love. You didn’t know what you were doing.” It was as if He couldn’t or wouldn’t understand my open hatred of Him.  
  
At last He had had His fill of me and I turned away from Him. The light had fled outside completely and it was as black as my soul out there. The King stroked my skin with His fingers and kissed me before getting up from my bed and leaving me alone.  
  
“If I stay you will not rest and I need you in the morning. It will be an important day, Lily. An end and a beginning… for both of us.”  
  
I yet ponder His enigmatic words as my candle burns down towards its holder. It will gutter at any moment and I will be left in darkness here at my desk. This old journal and the feeble words I write cannot express my fear, my loathing and my hopelessness for the future.  
  
**The 11th of July in the 17th year of the New Order**  
  
It’s truly over. My kind guard is dead. My family is dead. My friends are dead. And yet here I am. Somehow still here. I’m a cursed woman living in Hell.  
  
I was brought before the King in the throne room once again, dressed in more finery and jewels. My crown sat heavily on my head despite its delicate construction. Poor Nicholas was there as well but at least he was on his feet. It wouldn’t be for long. The King stood when I was brought in. How long the two men had been watching each other from across the room I didn’t know. He took my arm and escorted me down to the middle dais, one level above where Nicholas stood silently between his guards. I could see the infection in his leg had reached an atrocious state. He sweat and shook in powerful shivers. He desperately needed to be seen by a doctor. The King stood beside me and watched as Nicholas and I kept our eyes upon each other. After a long while, He stepped forward so I could see Him. He took a flintlock pistol out of His belt and held it up in His palm.  
  
“Did I not promise that today would be an end and a beginning, Lily?” All I could muster was a weak entreaty.  
  
“Please…. Don’t do this. I’ll be whatever you want, DO whatever you want. Please don’t kill him!” The King turned His frightening eyes to me and His eyebrows rose on His forehead.  
  
“I am not going to kill him.” I breathed out a breath I didn’t know I held in relief but the King was not done speaking. The side of His mouth quirked into a terrifying half smile.  
  
“You are.” I tried to back away but the King took my right arm and forced the gun into my hand.  
  
“No! No please! I won’t!!!” I cried and tried to drop the pistol. The King stepped behind me, blocking my escape, and kept His right hand tightly over mine so I couldn’t open my fingers from the handle of the gun. He raised my hand holding the gun and pointed it toward Nicholas. I struggled and fought but the King took my left hand in His and brought it over toward the gun to cock the hammer. I pulled my fingers tightly in to a fist but He used the side of my hand just as effectively as if He were doing it Himself. The King put His face next to mine and I wanted to vomit as I felt the Apple take over my arm, as if it alone had become disconnected from my body. The King released my hands and my right arm stayed out with the muzzle of the gun pointed perfectly at Nicholas’ chest. I couldn’t lower my arm. I tried to lower it by force with my left hand but it remained fixed in place as if it were made of iron. Panic grew stronger than my fear as I struggled and wept. My finger began to move to the trigger on its own accord, or, that is, of the King’s accord.  
  
“No! NO!!!” My words became wailing screams. Nicholas was jerking his body against the guards despite his pain and I gasped for breath when I had emptied my lungs of all their air. Through the harsh buzzing in my ears, for I was near to fainting, I heard Nicholas screaming my name. I looked across to him and we made eye contact as I still tried to lower my arm with my other hand and he shouted up at me.  
  
“It’s alright Lily, I know! It isn’t you. Just remember that I loved you!” The words were barely out of his mouth before my finger squeezed the trigger with incredible speed and violence. In the enclosed space, the explosive sound was tremendous. Smoke billowed out from the muzzle of the gun, obscuring my view of everything before me. When it cleared, Nicholas lay in an expanding pool of blood. He was gone. Everything blurred before me and the King released my arm from the Apple. I dropped to my knees and watched the gun fall from my hand, bounce silently on the stones and clatter down the stairs in slow motion. Then everything became black.  
  
I woke in my bed. I am alone. Something strange is happening to me. Even though I write as fast as I can, the memories are becoming faded, as if they were parts of a dream that happened long ago and I have a hard time remembering. I’m hollow and desolate yet I cannot muster up any rage for what I know is the shocking truth of what happened today.  
  
I fear that the King has done something more terrifying even than having stolen my freedom, my family and my closest friend from me. Something in me has changed, as if my sense of identity is slipping away and I have no desire to try to hold onto it. I just don’t care because it’s easier not to.  
  
A terrible exhaustion is coming over me. I must sleep. Perhaps I’ll feel better in the morning.  
  
**The 8th of November in the 21st year of the New Order Under our Great Lord and King**  
  
I found this book hidden in a dusty nook of the wall beneath the bed when dropped one of my rings this morning. I read the words contained within and was appalled at them. The hand is mine yet I wonder what on earth inspired me to write such terrible things about the King. What a child I was! The King is certainly not the hateful monster described within these pages. When I read the words I’d written here years ago, I have a powerful urge to throw this journal in the fireplace, for it’s such blasphemy that I cannot bear to have it near me, yet… something stops me. I must have written these entries for a reason; perhaps they are dreams and I didn’t want to forget them. My husband puts great stock in the meaning of dreams… No matter. I don’t recall why I felt I needed to record such things.  
  
So I must write this now: Let it be known for all posterity that the King is generous and kind, a faithful husband and a magnanimous ruler. New Kanatahseton will thrive under Him and our voices will raise in song and praise for His mighty arm of strength leading us to joyful prosperity. May our Lord and King always protect us and may He live forever!  
  
Ah, my beloved King! I miss Him every second that we are not together, when He has the business of order to maintain with His men. But I know that as soon as it has concluded, I’ll be in His arms once again, the most incredibly fortunate woman to ever have existed! I admit that I now smile secretly to myself just thinking of our love. Perhaps there is something to be said for writing about matters of the heart, for I certainly couldn’t express these intimate things to anyone! It would be quite the impropriety!  
  
I must set this frivolity aside now, for I need time to ready myself to join my King Husband in the throne room for His giving of the Blessing to those who ask of it. I’m always in awe of His ability to See who is deserving of His generosity that I don’t want to miss a moment of it.  
  
  
  
**Western American Republic Classified Archive item #4299.1**  
  
  
_In 2068, 56 years after the solar flare crisis of 2012, the Western American Republic had rebuilt itself enough to start expanding its interests. One of its main objectives was to reach the area of the country called New Kanatahseton. A completely isolated place for almost 283 years, the area had been rumored to be ruled by an ageless dictator with god-like abilities. Early records dating back to shortly after the 18th century Revolutionary War indicate that President Washington had been brutally murdered by a renegade former ally to obtain a powerful artifact he had had in his possession. A short time later, a wall had begun to be built along the eastern side of the Hudson River from its mouth at the Atlantic Ocean, following it north and roughly along the northern string of waterways up into Canada where it turned East along the southern side of the St. Lawrence River. It effectively contained the major states of New York and Massachusetts. Early attempts to breach the wall were occasionally successful but as time went by it seemed to become unapproachable. Anyone who dared venture too close committed suicide, including voluntary starvation. Eventually, no one dared go near it. If ships sailed too close to the eastern seaboard of New Kanatahseton, they would be intentionally run aground or capsized. When Satellite technology was created in the 1950’s, the images from space of the area were grayed out or cloudy, as if a thick gloom had settled over the area even though from the ground there was nothing obscuring the sky. This phenomenon persisted until the destruction of all satellite technology by the solar flare crisis._  
  
_Before the wall had been completed, refugees from the area had occasionally trickled out and they came bearing bizarre tales of a Native American man with glowing blue eyes who had the ability to manipulate the minds of those around him. He wielded a golden orb, assumed to be the artifact stolen from the murdered Washington. It is rumored that those who knew this man before he became the leader of a segregated society, described him as an intelligent, peaceable person, if a little overly single minded. The stories of subjugation, public executions and violent suppression of rebellion seemed to not be indicative of the same man. If he was and the stories were to be believed, they pointed toward a massive psychotic break that heralded in a cruel, poorly managed dictatorship._  
  
_Many of those early historical documents were lost in the worldwide fires resulting from the solar flare crisis. Once research parties were able to reach New Kanatahseton in February of 2069, it seemed that the impenetrable region was not immune to the heat and radiation generated by the solar flare. There appears to be no after effects of the former suicide zone surrounding the enclosure and once inside there are none of the former inhabitants left alive. The only living humans present were found to be wandering survivors who had entered the area before researchers reached it. In the few months since the Western American Republic has been able to enter the formerly restricted zone, they have recovered numerous archeological findings that indicate a primitive community of repressed socioeconomic status, little technological advancements in all of the time since the Revolutionary War, and severe epidemiological findings. Mass graves have been exhumed, containing both victims of plague-like illnesses or starvation and those killed as a result of bodily injury such as gunshot wounds, blunt force implements or blade type weapons._  
  
_In August of 2069, an elaborately constructed underground crypt was discovered near a large palace-like structure loosely based on the Egyptian pyramids located near the coast. Inside the crypt was a single stone coffin, somewhat protected from the worst of the solar flare’s effects due to its deep location and unusually high concentrations of copper and lead deposits in the soil. Engraved on the coffin’s surface were the following:_  
  
_Beloved Queen and Wife_  
 _YNO17- YNO63_  
  
_Based on the skeletal remains analyzed inside, the female corpse was close to seventy years of age at the time of death. Cause of death appears to be old age. Found with the corpse was an antique brass brooch and a small leather bound journal._  
  
_While originally thought to be the lunatic ravings of a madwoman, the journal has been reexamined due to the unusual and unprecedented finding inside the recently accessed palace. It had been sealed by the immense heat of the solar flare, rendering it impenetrable through standard means but with modern excavation equipment, entry was eventually made into the structure in October of 2069. In a cavernous interior space that had suffered significant structural damage, a large sphere was unearthed, resembling perfectly clear glass but comprised of an unidentifiable substance. Etched on the surface were linear formations and circular demarcations of an unknown meaning. Even more bizarre is what was contained within this sphere. A Native American man, approximately in his mid thirties, sitting slumped in an elaborate throne draped in cloth. One upper corner of the throne back is missing and, clearly visible through the clarity of the orb, is a perfectly preserved cross section of the throne’s gold and steel construction. Contained within the orb is also a section of the stone flooring beneath the chair. The man appears to be dead but his body and everything inside the sphere is untouched by time or decay. When researchers attempted to break the “glass” surrounding him, they were unable to do it. It had also appeared to have survived the crushing weight of huge sections of roof falling down on top of it as the building broke down in the aftermath of solar flare related destruction._  
  
_A specialist, Christopher Dulleson, was brought in who put forth the theory that the orb was actually an unusual manifestation of a “piece of eden” and that it needed to be treated the same as the few other government protected artifacts bearing the same categorization. He suggested that the size and configuration of the orb, though bearing visual similarities to much smaller, hand held “Apples” that had been found scattered over the surface of the planet, was actually a projection of the original artifact, perhaps a transmutation of the artifact itself being used as a defense mechanism. Dulleson proposed a theory to harness the power of the mind, as these Apples seemed capable of enhancing the neuropathways of the user. In this way, the orb could be accessed and perhaps restored to its original state. Initial attempts by individuals were unsuccessful. However, when several researchers, at the behest and under full responsibility of Dulleson, willingly took mind altering drugs, joined hands, spent almost two hours with a single concept fixed in their minds, and only Dulleson’s hand actually in contact with the artifact, the sphere cracked and then shattered into a burning white dust and dissipated, leaving nothing left to analyze, not even a residue. Every person present reported smelling a powerful odor of sulfur that permeated the air and eventually faded once the air surrounding the body had cleared. No amount of analysis on the video and audio recordings of this event have yielded answers to what the material was. Dulleson has been confined to within the boundaries of the research facility for the duration of this investigation._  
  
_A medical examiner was brought in to perform an autopsy on the body. Cause of death was noted to be the result of a radiation dose tens of thousands of times higher than the minimum lethal limit. Only one natural occurrence of radiation at measureable levels of that magnitude has been recorded in all of documented history: the mass extinction solar flare event of 2012. Study of the grounds around the area of New Kanatahseton prove it is located within the hemisphere of the Earth that was completely devastated by approximately 11Sv of cosmic radiation, which is consistent with the amount of RADs the body had absorbed._  
  
_Highly inconsistent with the nature of extreme radiation exposure and associated heat and fires from such a powerful solar flare event, the only evidence of burn marks were on the palms of the man’s hands. Radiation at such levels would have incinerated any organic matter exposed to it. The strange burn marks on the man’s hands mimic the patterns documented on the surface of the outer sphere and suggest he had held an item in his hands that reached a temperature of over 250 degrees Fahrenheit just before his death. The patterns would line up perfectly if his hands were positioned just above his head, as if he had been holding something defensively in a blocking posture. The position of his hands would also place them in the exact center of the outer orb. While all visual impressions of the man was that he was no older than his late thirties, dental and bone analysis indicate that he was inexplicably around 300 years old at the time of his death. There was no evidence of his eyes being anything outside of the genetic norms. They were noted to be an amber color, with normal pupil shape and size, and the shape of the eyeballs indicated he had mild astigmatism that was worse in the left eye._

  
 _Thorough testing of the contents of his stomach and intestines as well as analysis of hair samples reveal a diet high in animal proteins, corn, beans and squash. This is typical of colonial era settlers as well as the local indigenous populations of the 18th century._  
  
_Genome sequencing and analysis is currently in process but early estimates show that he has a high percentage of Native American heritage as well as some English, Italian and possibly distant Middle Eastern ancestry._  
  
_As we have continued to delve into the mystery surrounding New Kanatahseton, it seems that the horrific recorded experiences of a mad king’s concubine are the single most informative pieces of information about what went on within the confines of its perimeter._


End file.
